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THE LOST ORACLES 



THE LOST ORACLES 

A Masque 



By 
James Westfall Thompson 



"Every rite, every ceremony or belief that at 
any time has made the path of life easier to 
any one, demands my reverence." 

— Bishop Creighton 



WALTER M. HILL 
CHICAGO 






Copyright 1921 
By James Westfaix Thompson 



Published Jime 192 1 



Composed and Printed By 

The University of Chicago Press 

Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 



JUN 22 1921 



1CI.A6I744O 



-Vw^ ( 



THIS EDITION CONSISTS OF 
FIVE HUNDRED NUMBERED 
AND SIGNED COPIES, OF 
WHICH THIS IS NO. 



JOHANNI 
HENRICO 
FRATRI 
DILECTO 



That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and 
afterwards that which is spiritual. — St. Paul. 

Stir in the dark of the stars unborn that desire 

Only the thrill of a wild, dumb force set free; 
Yearn of the burning heart of the world on fire 

For life and birth and battle and wind and sea ; 
Groping of life after love till the spirit aspire, 

Into divinity ever transmuting the clod ; 
Higher and higher and higher and higher and higher 

Out of the Nothingness, world without end into God. 

— Richard Hovey, Taliesin. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction i 

Act I. Capri. In the Year 33 a.d 15 

Act II. Patmos 29 

Act III. Space: The Seven Heavens 37 

Act IV. Heaven: The Last Judgment 49 

Act V. The Lost Oracles 

Egypt 73 

Babylon 80 

Tyre 88 

Phrygia 95 

Persia loi 

Hellas 108 

Rome 116 

Interlude: Procession of the Exiled Gods . . . .125 
Act VI. The Consecration and the Poet's Dream 

Patmos 131 

The Vale of Tempe in Thessaly 136 



zi 



INTRODUCTION 

The Book of Revelation, sometimes known as the 
Apocalypse, and traditionally but erroneously ascribed to 
Saint John, was the basis of many a mediaeval mystery. In 
more modern times its sublime scenes and gorgeous imagery 
has furnished forth a number of oratorios (though no opera, 
so far as I am aware) , and been the subject of many a painter's 
brush. Under the circumstances it may seem presumptuous 
to think that any new and fresh interpretation of so old 
a theme is possible. Yet I venture to hope that in the 
dramatization of the struggle between the pagan cults of 
antiquity and early Christianity here presented, both the 
Apocalypse and the ''Death of the Gods" have received a 
new literary valuation. For I have tried to touch with 
modern poetry and modern passion one of the most tragically 
beautiful episodes in the history of human culture. 

Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy, has magnificently 
said that "A people, and for the rest also a man, is worth 
just as much only as its ability to impress on its existence 
the seal of eternity." This has been the aim of every great 
religion of the world. But the effect has been sought in 
different modes or ways by different religions. Buddhism 
finds it in the doctrine of impermanence and detachment, and 
in ultimate mergence with nature. "The One remains, the 
many change and pass." 

The Greek, on the other hand, found the ultimate in no 
ultimate. To him search was life, finality was death. His 
was the Dionysian ecstasy to experience the eternal delight 
of becoming. To the Greek never-ending grovv^th was the 
law of life. To him living had no value, life had. To him 
what justified man, and would justify him to all eternity, was 

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his own reality. The majesty of mysteries was self-realization, 
for in self-realization God also was revealed. This is the 
profound truth at the bottom of the myth of Prometheus: 
man seeking to become God — the will, not to be like God, but 
to become God. To become one's greatest self, with the 
Greeks, was piety. 

The power in this aspiration was not faith, but reason. 
"Mind sees, mind hears, all besides is dumb and blind," 
said Empedocles. The panic of God in Genesis, and of the 
Gods in Greek mythology, was fear lest man's reason might 
come to rival that of God himself; that man's self-sufficient 
wisdom might some day make him equal with God. If the 
day were ever to come when man had no need of God, then 
God were not. Hence God's stigmatizing of man's search 
for truth as sin, and the wish to acquire knowledge as a crime, 
as if truth were something which one may possess and another 
be denied. Hence, too, the break-up of the nations at Babel, 
and the destruction of "sinful" man by the Flood. 

The passion for the forbidden, the determination to 
acquire that beyond what is easily attainable, the courage for 
achievement, the struggle for the labyrinthine, the search 
for truth, requires the highest qualities of mind and heart. 
There is a deep symbolism in the nailing of Prometheus to the 
snow-capped peaks of Caucasus. The man who lives out the 
highest that he knows must "have a thirst for thunderbolts," 
and get used to loneliness and cold. "Life always gets 
harder towards the summit," wrote Nietzsche, "the cold 
increases." The period of ancient history when the Greek 
body bloomed, when the Greek soul brimmed over, was also 
the epoch of that Olympic struggle, in the dust cloud of which, 
perhaps transfigured by the mists of time and the "pathos of 
distance," we see the towering figures of men like Prometheus, 
walking as Gods. 

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Historical Christianity has found the destiny of man, his 
highest and best, not in impermanence and detachment, nor 
yet again in the Greek principle of eternal becoming, but in 
finality — a final heaven of eternal bliss for the good, a final 
hell of eternal torment for the wicked. From the point of 
view of intelligence and reason, such a solution is degrading. 
For there can be no finality without immobility, and immo- 
bility is death. 

Finality of itself were bad enough. But Christianity 
makes its case worse by pivoting the conduct of man not upon 
reason and intelligence, but upon faith, which is often blind 
belief in what is denied by intelligence, and the refusal to 
know what is true. "The search for truth is made hopeless if 
the world, mistrusting reason, weary of argument and wonder, 
flings itself passionately under the spell of a system of author- 
ized revelation, which acknowledges no truth outside itself 
and stamps free inquiry as sin." This is what orthodox 
Christianity does. Better Cain and Esau, who were of the 
race of the strong, than the supple and pliant Abel and Jacob. 
Better Prometheus, who defied the Gods, than Oedipus 
who exhibited only "the heroism of passivity." Tyndall's 
utterance rings like a clarion: "No worse infidelity could seize 
upon the mind than the belief that a man's earnest search 
after truth should culminate in his perdition." 

The idea of revealed religion implies man's incapacity to 
think for himself, and the presumption that truth is dangerous 
for him to know. It nurtures error and suppresses truth. 
God becomes either a tyrant pursuing man with his wrath 
for seeking truth, and endeavoring to become his greatest 
self; or else everything strong, masterful, quick, proud, 
becomes eliminated from the idea of God. Why find weeping 
sweet? Man should be, and has a right to be, noble and 
proud and swift of heart and mind. It is mind, reason, will, 

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that redeems man, not faith. Faith cultivates ignorance, 
error, superstition, morbidity, moral and intellectual degrada- 
tion. Contempt of man for himself is its keynote. 

To the honor of the cults of antiquity, they never con- 
ceived the vicious idea of a revealed religion, or developed 
the principle of authority in religion, or created a systematic 
theology. The Greek's business was with thought and action, 
not with reward; least of all did the Greek believe in any 
atonement for sin outside of himself. His sacrifices were 
propitiatory, not expiatory. 

Under the syncretic influences and impulses of the time 
in which Christianity was born and expanded, it imbibed and 
assimilated much from the beliefs and practices of the many 
pagan cults with which it came in contact. But unfortunately 
it chose the worse and not the better parts of these religions. 
It developed a Christian mythology of its own, while it 
condemned the mythology of the Greek and oriental cults, 
although the spiritual suggestiveness of the latter exceeds 
that in the former. To those who have eyes to see and hearts 
to understand, the myths of Aphrodite and of Kronos and 
Rhea were intimations of God, But they taught by allegory 
and mystery, not by dogmatism and theological exposition. 
Just here was the ground of feud between Julian and the 
church fathers of the fourth century. The d3dng paganism 
of the fourth century believed that Greek philosophy and 
mythology were the relics of a primeval revelation. "There 
is truth in the myths, but irksome and hard to the mind is 
faith," said Empedocles. 

It is the demerit of historical Christianity to have devised 
dogma, invented exegesis, and formulated the principle of 
intolerance, under the influence of Hellenistic sophistry and 
dialectic and Roman legalism. The Greek believed in the 
moral ascent of man through use of his faculties of will, reason, 

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knowledge, and understanding. He put a premium on intelli- 
gence and the essential worth of the individual. Better were 
it for a man to go to ruin like a broken cloud than humiliate 
his heart by slavishly accepting that which his intelligence 
knows to be untrue or absurd. 

Religion is a tragic business. For human life, with all its 
beauty and its possibiUties, after all rests upon a sub-stratum 
of suffering. But why make that suffering ignoble, instead 
of ennobling ? To know God, to seek for Him who is beyond 
all darkness, is the majesty of mysteries, and never was man 
yet who completely penetrated behind the veil. But it is not 
religious to bear about a shattered and bleeding soul, and 
ever to be spiritually miserable and morbid. It is not sinners 
who are saved, but the noble of soul. The man who has to be 
saved by atonement is not worth saving at any price, even a 
penny's worth. Life transcends life. But it is not heaven 
or immortality in the end, but a higher magic plane of spiritual 
existence which establishes a new world on the ruins of 
the old. 

He who scoffs at the spiritual values found in the cults of 
antiquity is either ignorant or bigoted, or both. If there 
were only one religion in the world it would be too easily 
recognized. Christianity is not that merle blanche among 
religions which it is commonly reputed to be. It has sprung 
from the same root of paganism, and is just one more branch 
of the great tree of religion. 

We are apt to forget that the religions of Isis and Osiris, 
of Attis, of Dionysos, were as real to their worshipers as the 
Christian religion is today to its votaries. The pagans whom 
the early Christians execrated were as certain of their Vege- 
tation Gods, their Sun Gods, as modern Christians are of 
their God-in-Christ; and the pretenses to biographical 
knowledge of their Gods which we call mythology have little 

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less historicity than the pious mythology which has encrusted 
the life of Jesus. Jesus was an historical person. The Christ 
is a character of Christian mythology. As, back of Osiris, 
perhaps once lived a great religious teacher in oldest Egypt; 
as, back of Zoroastrianism, once lived another great religious 
teacher in Iran, the one to become a God, the other an 
energumen, so back of the energumatic Christus was the his- 
torical Jesus. But the connection between the two, in each 
case, is an imaginary one. The few historical statements 
which can be made concerning Jesus cannot be admitted as 
evidence concerning Christ, for "Christ" is not an historical 
person, but an invention of the theological mind. 

One who reads ancient Greek poetry, philosophy, mythol- 
ogy, with his spiritual senses on the alert, can hardly avoid 
a feeling of poignant regret that early Christianity read the 
message of those ancient cults with so literal an eye instead 
of tr3dng to understand the spirit of their parole, and to view 
the search of the ancient cults after God at least with tolera- 
tion, even if not with sympathy. There is no room for 
imagination or poetry or beauty in dogma or ecclesiastical 
legalism. The spiritual loss to the world owing to early 
Christianity's dogmatism, hardness of heart and deliberate 
determination not to see what was best and greatest in the 
heart of the ancient mystery religions is enormous. 

In this day of ours no two men have so sympathetically 
interpreted the grandeur of Greek religious thought as have 
Nietzsche and Sir Gilbert Murray, or felt more deeply the 
tragedy of its extinction. The former has written: 

The world grew older and the dream vanished For this 

is the manner in which rehgions are wont to die out: when, under 
the stern, intelligent eyes of an orthodox dogmatism, the mjrthical 
presuppositions of a reUgion are systematised as a completed sum of 
historical events, and when one begins apprehensively to defend the 

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credibility of the myth — when, accordingly, the feeling of myth dies out 
and its place is taken by the claims of religion to historical foundations.' 

Sir Gilbert Murray has formulated this brief for ancient 
paganism : 

The kind of religion which ancient paganism had become at the 
time of its final reaction against Christianity [is] a more or less intelligible 
whole, and succeeds better than most religions in combining two great 
appeals. It appeals to the philosopher and the thoughtful man as a 
fairly complete and rational system of thought, which speculative and 

enlightened minds in any age might believe without disgrace 

At the same time this religion appeals to the ignorant and the humble- 
minded. It takes from the pious villager no single object of worship that 
has turned his thoughts heavenwards. It may explain and purge, it 
never condemns or ridicules. In its own eyes that was its greatest 

glory; in the eyes of history, perhaps, its fatal weakness After 

the time of Constantine .... it is paganism, not Christianity, that 
must uphold the flag of a desperate fidelity in the face of a hostile world. 
.... The battle is over, and it is poor work to jeer at the wounded 

and the dead Like other vanquished, these vanquished have 

been tried at the bar of history without benefit of counsel, have been 
condemned in their absence and died with their lips sealed. The 
polemic literature of Christianity is loud and triumphant, the books of 
the pagans have been destroyed. Only an ignorant man will pronounce 

a violent or bitter judgment here No one man's attitude towards 

the Uncharted can be quite the same as his neighbor's [But] for- 
gotten things, if there be real life in them, will sometimes return out 
of the dust, vivid to help still in the fonvard groping of humanity.' 

May I quote at some length from another ? One of the 
weightiest books of its size published within the century is 
Dr. L. R. Farriell's The Evolution of Religion.^ The five great 
volumes by this scholar upon "The Cults of the Greek States" 
have amply qualified him to write this admirable interpreta- 
tive synthesis. He says: 

The reasonable and sympathetic study of the various religions of 
mankuid, which are perhaps the clearest murror we possess of human 

' Birth of Tragedy, p. 84. ^Four Stages of Greek Religion, pp. 177-84. 

3 L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, New York and London, 1905. 

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feeling, aspiration, and thought in its highest and lowest forms, is only 
possible for the individual or for the age that feels no constraining call 

to suppress and obliterate all save one cherished creed We 

owe to it [anthropology] the positive induction that the religious product 
at the different stages and in the diiferent branches of mankind was a 

complex growth from many different germs Greek mythology 

has often its striking affinities It is necessary for comparative 

folklore and anthropology to point this out and often to insist on the 
beauty of the legend and the dignity of the religious thought. . . . • 
Greek mythology, after all, is the most beautiful of any of which we 
have record. 

Yet what is less its own than a people's gods ? We greatly desider- 
ate an anthropology of the Mediterranean basin, including anterior Asia; 
for there are strong reasons for the belief that from very early times 
the frequent intercourse of the leading peoples in this region endowed 
them with a common stock of reUgious ideas, ritual and legend which 
have probably left their impress on the higher religions of the world. 
.... For probably every one of the world-creeds has inherited, apart 
from its own achievement, a double tradition, a tradition from the 

more remote and one from the more immediate past Neither 

our sacred books nor Judaic hterature nor Greek philosophy explain the 
whole complex of historic Christianity The old Phrygian reli- 
gion .... must be seriously taken into account People 

insist on telling the old stories under changed names St. Augus- 
tine, mistaking Greek legends for Greek religion, could discover no 
morality in it at all, and modern scholars have inherited the fallacy. 
.... The myth that is an essential fact for the student of religion is 
that which enshrines some living religious idea or institution, or one 
which proves the survival of some ritual or faith that belonged to an 
older system. 

.... The divine character of the Virgin owed much, directly or 

indirectly, to the great Anatohan cult of the Mother-Goddess 

When St. Paul promises to "show you a mystery" he is borrowing the 
language of paganism.' .... Bishop Clemens uses the phraseology of 

the Eleusinian and Attis Mysteries The formula nomina sunt 

numina was valid in all the old religions of the Mediterranean area, 
including earlier and even later Christianity In the history of 

'I Cor. 15:51. So in I Cor. 2:7 he writes: "We speak the wisdom of 
God in a mystery." 



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divine names none has been of greater import for paganism and Christ- 
ianity alike than Kore-Parthenos and that of the Greek and Phrygian 

Divine Mother The goddess who proffered salvation in the 

pre-Christian Hellenic world aflforded strong stimulus to the later 
growth and diffusion of Mariolatry, which is one of those phenomena in the 
history of the Church which cannot be adequately explained without look- 
ing beyond the limits of Christianity proper In the veneration 

of images .... we infallibly detect the abiding influence of Graeco- 

Roman paganism Idolatry, in this sense, is a higher form of 

fetichism We probably all inherit some faint impress of the 

fetichistic spirit, nor need we be startled if we find it in the higher 
religions. 

.... Even at the present time we can easily recognize the 

fetichistic value of the sacred objects, relics, crucifixes The 

"adoration of the true wood of the cross" .... if we merely consider 
the nature of the religious object and the value of the material thing 

for , faith, must be called fetichistic The fetichism, then, of 

the higher religions and of the savage faith is morphologically the 
same 

Finally, there remains the question .... concerning the affinities 
of the Christian and the pre-Christian religions in primary ideas and 

essential belief The incarnation of the Godhead in human form 

was a familiar conception to the civilized and half-civUized races of the 

old world More important still for the purposes of religious 

comparison is the wide prevalence in the Mediterranean communities of 

the belief in the death and resurrection of the divinity The 

comparative student must also give careful consideration to what are 
called the eschatologic doctrines, the beliefs concerning posthumous 
happiness, salvation and damnation, not only of the Judaic, but also of 
the Hellenic, Anatolian and Egyptian religions 

Our own religious history should be traced back to the period of 

our ancestral paganism We shall not know ourselves .... in 

fact we may say that no account of the history of Christianity in any 
European state can be real and complete unless we can get back to the 

pre-Christian past of that community Hellas has dominated the 

creed as she has dominated the intellectual history of Christendom. 
The new faith, in spite of its fierce or contemptuous intolerance of the 
past, was only able to transform but not to abolish the Mediterranean 
tradition. 



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If the religions of antiquity were full of error and illusion, 
so is Christianity. It is simply a question of degree. In last 
analysis logically there is no such thing as a false God or a 
false religion, as Max Miiller said. For every religion is a 
search after Him who is beyond all darkness. One of the 
saddest facts in the history of the spread of Christianity 
is its failure to perceive this fundamental truth of religion. 
This the various cults of antiquity, on the other hand, 
perceived. While not co-operating, they were not hostile 
to one another, they were not intolerant of one another. 
Every votary was at liberty to pass from one religion 
to another if he failed to find spiritual refreshment in one 
cult and chose to seek for it in another cult. Dogmatism, 
intolerance, heresy, are the inventions of the Christian mind, 
not of the pagan. Instead of holding out the right hand of 
fellowship to the other reHgions in the Roman world, Christ- 
ianity regarded them all as enemies and at last slew them, 
to the enormous spiritual impoverishment of mankind. For 
in destroying paganism Christianity destroyed profound 
spiritual agencies working among men, and itself had not 
sufficient spirituality to recompense for the loss. 

"Few indeed, but those roses," as the poet Meleager 
said of the fragments of Sappho, are the precious survivals 
of paganism which the ferocity of the early church fathers 
has spared unto us. 

The imagination of poets, musicians, artists, has fed upon 
the paganism of antiquity, at least since the Renaissance, as a 
rose feeds upon sunlight and air. Milton, for all his puritan- 
ism, was profoundly imbued with paganism. The Ode on the 
Morning of Christ's Nativity is saturated with allusions to 
the cults of ancient Israel, Egypt, Babylonia, Phoenicia, 
Greece, and Rome. It is almost as much pagan as it is 
Hebrew and Christian. So, too, Handel's operas are redolent 

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of pagan memorials. With a greater delicacy than Milton's, 
Handel perceived shades or gradations in ancient paganism. 
The late Samuel Butler, an ardent admirer of Handel's 
music, has acutely pointed out the contrast "between the 
polished and refined Roman paganism in 'Theodora,' the 
rustic paganism of 'Bid the maids the youths provoke' in 
'Hercules,' the magician's or sorcerer's paganism of the blue 
furnace in 'Chemosh no more,' or the Dagon choruses in 
'Samson.'" 

But neither Milton nor Handel, nor yet Swinburne nor 
Tennyson nor Walter Pater \dsualized the spiritual content of 
the ancient cults. Their mythology, to them, was sometimes 
a pretty fairy tale or legend, but the reUgious message em- 
bodied in it escaped their discernment. It is only of late 
years, since the development of the science of comparative 
rehgion, that we have come to understand that behind the 
veil of myth lay a deep rehgious motive, which taught, how- 
ever, not by direct speech, but by allegory and symbol. 
With the new key to our understanding which the study of 
comparative rehgion has put in our hands, the ancient 
Greek and oriental cults have come to have a new significance 
and a new beauty. 

A behef may be very far from real truth, but if it is 
sincere, it may yet be Hfe-preserving. Whichever form of 
deity any worshiper wishes to worship, if he worships in spirit 
and in truth, there is God. God has many tones and many 
ways by which He calls man unto Himself. God dwells at 
the top of the mountain, and many are the paths which 
lead thither. 



(II) 



ACT I. CAPRI. IN THE YEAR 33 A.D. 



.... about the evening the vessel was becahned near the Isles 
Echinades, whereupon their ship drove with the tide till it was carried 
near the Isles of Paxi; when immediately a voice was heard calling 
unto one Thammoz; which Thammoz was a mariner of Egypt. He 
returned no answer to the first calls; but at the third he repUed, "Here, 
here. I am the man." Then the voice said aloud to him, "When you 
are arrived at Palodes, take care to make it known that the Great God 
Pan is dead." Being come to Palodes, there was no wind stirring, and 
the sea was as smooth as glass. Whereupon Thammoz, standing on the 
deck with his face towards the land, uttered with a loud voice his 
message, saying, "The Great Pan is dead." He had no sooner said this 
than they heard a dreadful noise, not only of one, but of several who 
groaned and lamented with a kind of astonishment. An account of this 
was soon spread over Rome, which made Tiberius the Emperor send 
for Thammoz. And he seemed to give such heed to what was told him 
that he earnestly enquired who this Pan was. — Plutarch, Moralia: 
Why the oracles cease. 

The lonely mountains o'er, 
And the resounding shore 

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament. 

— MiLTONj Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. 



ACT I. CAPRI. IN THE YEAR 33 A.D. 

The terrace of the imperial palace of the emperor Tiberius in the isle 
of Capri, a magnificent slriicture of vast extent and imposing appear- 
ance, perched on a rocky promontory above the sea, from the edge of 
which it is a sheer drop of over a thousand feet to the shore below. It is 
a warm, soft flight in April, balmy with the scent of spring. The 
gentle land breeze brings over the bay the odor of jasmine and orange 
blossoms. A nightingale is singing in a coppice in the cherry orchard 
near by. The moon, almost full, is riding high, and her bright light 
makes an argent path of rippling radiance across the face of the waters. 
The mountains, not too distant, are veiled in a misty haze, half light, 
half moisture. The dead cone of Vesuvius looms up majestically, its 
crown still covered with gleaming patches of lingering snow. Along 
the shore a few lights in Puteoli wink and blink, and shifting reflec- 
tions corns from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. The solitary 
phare on Cape Misenum burns with steady flame, like a planet fallen 
to earth. The low ripple of the waves upon the beach far beneath may 
be heard like a muffled undertone to the throbbing notes of the nightin- 
gale. Tiberius is leaning over the balcony on the side of the terrace 
toward the sea. He is an old man with a frowning, even morose 
countenance, of robust appearance in spite of signs of age; he is 
deep of chest and broad of shotdders, and has a fair complexion. 
The most striking thing about him are his eyes, which are grey-blue, 
large, and very penetrating beneath bushy eyebrows. Tiberius' 
hair is thin; he wears an ivy wreath upon his head, atid when he 
walks a slight limp is observable in his left foot. The measured tread 
of the centurion of the guard tnay be heard as he paces back and forth in 
the corridor behirtd a row of columns to the right of the terrace, through 
which access to the palace is given. 

Tiberius (musing) 

Where mighty Rome now h'es outspread was once 
But grass and hills. Where stands the Palatine 
Evander's herd its pasturage once found. 
The ancient race of Rome used estimate 

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Their little hearths a realm, where Remus' house 
Is perched. The founders of imperial Rome 
Were robed in skins then. Three score gathered in 
A mead together once the senate made. 

And now, since when Rome flung back Hannibal, 
A foiled, circuitous adventurer. 
From 'fore her gates, might and dominion, 
Power, majesty and principality, 
Like Pelion on Ossa she has piled 
Until her empire's topmost pinnacle 
Doth rake the very stars. Her eagle wings 
Stretch from the Gates of Hercules unto 
The Caucasus; from cataracts of Nile 
Far as Germania's forests deep. O Rome, 
Rome, Rome! O wolf of Mars, thou wert the best 
Of nurses. From thy milk what walls have sprung! 

And yet, what boots it all ? Have not empires 
Their seasons, like the year ? Their spring of birth, 
The summer of their power, the autumn of 
Their declination, then the winter long 
Of void and death till they are covered o'er 
By myth and legend hoar — a thousand years 
Of pulsing life, perchance, reduced to five 
Brief lines upon the page of some obscure 
Thucydides. Shall some strange traveler 
From Hindustan, in days that are to come, 
Climb the steep Capitol, perchance, to view 
The mighty ruins of the Palatine 
Across the Forum's monumental woe ? 
The indecipherable boasts of kings ! 
The cry of vanished empires past and gone! 
Where's Ninevah ? the Pharaohs ? Cyrus now ? 
Can Memnon musical the secret tell ? 

(i6) 



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Or the huge wedge-shaped pyramids ? Do they 

Still keep within their hearts of porphyry 

The embalmed corses of the Pharoahs dead ? 

Go thither: see how even their granite walls 

Are pierced by vulgar raveners of tombs; 

Houses of clay are they also, whose sides 

Are crushed before the moth. "Res accendent 

Lumina rebus — things shall light the torch 

Of things." Lucretius, thou dost bewray 

Thine own philosophy. Shall not the flame 

That's Rome burn out ? Empires are not like stars, 

Perduring ever in their firmament. 

From Romulus the Romans of today 

Naught but the name possess. Spawn of the newt 

Are they, not whelps of that she-wolf whose dugs 

Nurtured on iron milk that sturdy babe. 

Is 't fate, immutable necessity, 
Or chance, mere circumstance, that rules the world ? 
Is our beginning and our end, is man 
Himself naught to the gods ? the course of Rome 
No more than children's markings in the sand, 
Or line in water writ ? Is all that brain 
And hand of man have patiently achieved 
To ruination doomed ? — the cumulate 
Results of centuries of labor, thought, 
By vagrant winds of history to be 
Dispersed ? Is Rome to sink to grassy mounds 
O'er whose green slopes Campagna's kine shall feed 
On herbage made more rich by what's beneath ? 

Tiberius leans over the parapet and moodily regards the farther shore. 
Suddenly he starts. 

.... A boat. By all the gods, what mystery's 
Afloat ? Who dare invade the privacy 

(17) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



Which I have sought within this island, far 
From the noisome crowd of Rome ? Are kings 
Like 'pothecaries, to be routed out 
At midnight by some witless wight who thinks 
His grievance large as an affair of state ? 
.... Like some huge water-beetle it doth look, 
Its oars outstretched as slender insects' legs 
Oft seen in stagnant ponds in summer time. . . . 
Black bats and evil birds do fly by night; 
The honest man is not afraid of light. 



The measured plash of oars is faintly heard, then the rattle of a chain 
being run through an iron ring on the mole below. A man climbs 
out of the boat and without hesitation begins to ascend the steep path 
up the face of the cliff. The ring of swift and firm footsteps is heard 
in the corridor, and in another minute the centurion of the guard 
appears, followed by a tall, half-nude Egyptian, clad in the costume of 
a sailor, his forehead tightly bojmd with a linen bandeau. His 
swarthy visage is sombre, his eyes are deep and grave; his speech 
, plaintive and in mixed Greek and Latin. 

Centurion (saluting) 
Majesty ! 

Tiberius 

Who dares the isolation 
Of Tiberius to penetrate must 

Bear important news. Who art thou ? Whence art 
Thou ? Thy look betokens thee a sailor. 
Speak. 

Thammoz 

My name is Thammoz. Out of the great 
Port of Alexandria I sail as 
Pilot of a corn ship bringing Egypt's 
Tributary wheat Rome's red maw to fill. 
Much have I travelled. Neither Jason nor 

(i8) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



Ulysses farther voyaged, or marvels more 

In strange seas saw than I have seen. I've sailed 

'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis; I have heard 

The sirens' song, and 'scaped from Circe's wiles; 

Upon the Euxine's waters black I've seen 

The phosphorescent spectres of men dead 

For years, like seaweed floating in the foam; 

Off Cythera, against the rosy dawn, 

I once saw Aphrodite from the wave 

Rise like an exhalation, her white limbs 

With bright sea water dripping, her moist hair 

Curling in tendrils delicate around 

Her shapely head, bedecked with orchids pink 

Plucked from the floor of the Aegean Sea; 

At midnight off Great Syrtis have I met 

The black and silent barque of Serapis, 

Laden with human souls, which oarless moves. 

Nor sails nor rudder has. My heart has ne'er 

Felt fear. Such sights befall a sailor's lot. 

But seven days ago, on such a night 
As this, along Arcadia's shore I heard 
A voice. "Thammoz," it cried. At first no heed 
I gave. One's eyes and ears at sea do oft 
Play prankish tricks. Again the voice rang out. 
And this time right imperiously, "Thammoz, 
Thammoz, dost thou hear ? " A great fear gripped me 
Then, and timorously I answered hail with 
Hail. "Who calls?" I cried. Across the water 
Came reply: "Pan is dead. Great Pan is dead. 
HAN MEFAS TEGNHKH. Go thou to Rome. 
Tell thou Tiberius this oracle." 

Then all the air and waters round till dawn 
With wailings, sobbings, dirges, did resound. 

(19) 



Zhc %ost ©racles 



The sky was clear, and yet it wept with rain; 

The bosom of the sea, as 't were with pent 

Emotion torn, did rise and fall and tossed 

Like fevered sleeper whose untranquil mind 

Pictures fantastic shapes upon the walls 

Of the dark chamber where he Hes in pain. 

During this strange recital Tiberius has stood silent, his eyes intently 

fixed on Thammoz' face. His glance alone betrays the depth of his 

emotion. 

Tiberius (hoarsely) 

Thou are not mad. The gods are, Thammoz. They 

Communicate with man by oracle 

And sign, by portent, dream and omen strange. 

But Delphi's self were baffled by this word 

Out of Arcadia come. " Great Pan is dead." 

Methought that Arcady was least among 

My provinces. Degenerate Greece, is this 

Thy subtle vengeance for Rome's tyranny ? 

That thou wouldst frustrate Rome's proud empire by 

Destruction of the gods ?— the twelve great gods 

Upon whose will her sovereignty is piered ? 

Thammoz 

Take heed, Tiberius. May there not be 
Truth even in Arcady ? as Httle towns 
Sometunes to great men give nativity. 

Tiberius 

Thou art bold of speech Stand thou here and 

wait. 
This cryptic utterance solution prompt 
Demands. I will consult Thrasyllus straight. 
The emperor claps his hands. The centurion of the guard appears 
and salutes. ' 

(20) 



Xlbe Xost ©cades 



Centurion 

Your majesty hath called. 

Teberius 

Bring hither now 
And speedily, Thrasyllus, from the dome 
Where he consults the motions of the stars. 

The guard salutes and witMraws. While he is wailing Tiberius 
paces back and forth moodily. Thammoz seems lost in reverie. 
There is dead silence. Even the nightingale's song is hushed. 

.... The gods die not, and yet their gifts may fail 



Centurion {returning) 
Behold he comes. 

Enter Thrasyllus, the emperor's astrologer. He is a lUile man of 
grave dignity vestured in a sky-blue robe broidered with gold and 
purple; his head-dress is a yellow-gold turban so arranged that a 
front view of him gives the effect of a nimbus or halo around his head. 

Thrasyllus 

Kings are like stars. The world 
Doth worship them. 

Tiberius 

I have a problem which 

ShaU test the metal of thy sorceries. 

Thrasyllus 

Let the emperor speak, and I shall tell 
The truth with warrant, else am I a seer 
That knows not how to wheel an orrery, 
And read the constellations and the signs. 
The Babylonian Archytas gat 
Me, and the gods bear witness I have not 
Beshamed my kin. What rare thing is it that 
The emperor requireth ? 

(21) 



tlbe Xost ©raclcs 



Tiberius {signing to Thammoz) 

Rehearse 

Thy tale. 

Thammoz 

The signs and wonders of the sea 
Are nothing strange to me. For they who go 
Down to the sea in ships are doomed to learn 
More things than landsmen on the steadfast shore 
Do dream in their philosophy. Seven days 
Ago, hard by Arcadia's coast, my ship 
Her passage made, when sudden from the shore 
A voice unhuman, yet articulate 
Did cry three several times my name: "Thammoz, 
Thammoz, Thammoz." At first I listed not, 
Surmising that imagination duped 
The sensual ear. Yet thrice again it came. 
"Who calls ? " I hailed, and marvelled echo none 
The viewless voice gave back, for we were less 
Than fifty fathoms distant from a cliff 
So high Deucalion might have refuge found 
Upon its frowning top. And then meseemed 
The crag itself gave voice and cried aloud: 
" Go, tell the emperor Tiberius 
Great Pan is dead." A mighty dread seized hold 
Upon me then, I shook with fear. For all 
Around the air was vibrant with strange cries; 
The water's face did creep and crinkle like 

A serpent's cast-off skin Dawn brought surcease, 

Yet still in dreams I hear that anguished cry. 

As 't were some wounded god This is my tale. 

Tiberius 

Read me this riddle now. 

(22) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



Thrasyllus 

I must survey 
The stars. No common magic will avail. 
There's more of truth in poetry and myth 
Than dwells in all the prose was every writ. 
Arcadia was Hellas' primal home 
Of poesy and song and prophesy. 
Though Greece be sunk upon her lees, mayhap 
The lyric cry, the authentic note, vibrates 
Within her yet. Still, still, with living voice 
For them with spiritual sense endowed, 
Hellas her thunders and her whispers has. 
Perfect beauty is imperishable. 
A race may forfeit all its ancient worth; 
But truth, with alienated majesty, 
Returns at last, as every drop of blood 
Comes back unto its dwelling in the heart. 

Tiberius (drily) 

For a Chaldaean thou dost much extol 
A people alien unto thee. What of 
Rome thinkest thou ? 

Thrasyllus 

Two voices there are. One 
Of the land, one of the sea. So 't is of 
Nations, too. One lives for sense and action; 
One for the mind, the heart, the soul. The choice 
Is free. But made, what destiny awaits 
Is fixed and ordered as the skyey spheres. 

Tiberius (irritably) 

What augury dost thou attach unto 
This tale ? 

(23) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



Thr.\syllus 

For every man of woman born 

There is a star. Never was there but one 

Pylades, or but one Orestes, fain 

His life to give away to save a friend. 

Most men to one another hostile are; 

And therefore does the world have war, while peace, 

Fair exile, wanders up and down the earth 

Like Egypt's Isis seeking for the lost 

Osiris in Nilotic fens But this 

Strange sign deals not with war. For all war comes 

From man, not God. This near concerns the soul. 

TrBERIUS 

An end to thy philosophy. Read now 
This planetarium. 

He indicates a table near by on which is affixed a steel mirror, the 
face of which is covered with geometrical lines graven on the surface, 
which intersect at many angles. The signs of the zodiac encircle the 
mirror. Thrasyllus bends over the table and for some minutes attent- 
ively studies the reflection of the stars in the mirror, while Tiberius 
watches him with visible anxiety. 

Thrasyllus 

The stars incline .... 
Towards Asia. 

He hastily traces some cabalistic figures upon another table lightly 
covered with sand. The rising wind at once obliterates them. 

Tiberius ., ., , 

Absit omen! 

T^^^^^^^^ ....They are fixed 

Above Judea .... o'er Jerusalem 

Does Caesar trust his procurator there ? 

Tiberius 

Pontius Pilate ? None is better for those 
Stiff-necked Jews He knows the law. 

(24) 



TTbe Xost ©racles 



Thrasyllus (with great agitation) 
Aye. But does 
He faithfully sustain Rome's justice there ? 
He has delivered over to the rage 
Of the chief priests one who is innocent. 
By them he has been crucified. I see 
Him hanging on the tree, and bloody sweat 
Is on his brow. The scandal of this cross 
Shall bring disaster down on all the gods. 
Their sanctuaries shall be crushed. Their priests 
Shall fail. Across their cold white altar stones 
The snail shall chart his path. The Great God Pan, 
Of truth, is dead! The gods are mortal, too! 

Tiberius (fiercely) 

The empire ? and the emperor ? . . . . 

Thrasyllus 

.... The sky 

Is mute. The wind is sinister. Didst thou 

Not see this moment past how mockingly 

It swept the fatal sand and blotted out 

The signs I writ ? 

Tiberius (striving to shake of his sense of fear) 

Bah! What to Rome is one 
Cross more ? 

Thrasyllus 

Caesar, say not so. Truth may be 

Imprisoned, tortured, scourged, chained, crucified; 

It is the weakest, yet the mightiest thing 

In all the world. However darkly read, 

Scorn not the intimation of the signs. 

Remember how great Julius failed to heed 

The soothsayer upon the Ides of March; 

(25) 



TLbc Xost ©racles 



How there was found beneath his toga clasped, 
By his own blood incarnadined, the fell 
Papyrus that too vainly warned him of 
The assassin's dagger. Be thou also warned. 
A strange, wild word of eastern sibyl long 
Ago comes to me now. "Repent, repent." 
When comes the day of visitation, what 
Wilt thou do ? Whither wilt thou flee for help ? 
Where wilt thou leave thy glory ? Caesar, think. 
Dominion of the great alone would fain 
Be feared. Yet who is to be feared but God ? 
Out of His power what can be wrested or 
Withdrawn ? Say when, or whither, or by whom. 

Tiberius (moodily, yet with a ring of pride in his voice) 
While looms the Pantheon Rome shall stand. When 
Falls the Pantheon, then Rome shall fall; 
And when Rome falls, the world. For all the gods 
Are congregated there, and vigil keep. 
Thou sayest God. I say the gods. 'T is they 
Who fill life full of love; 't is they who caused 
Savagery to cease and hallowed holy 
Rites; 't is they who gave men laws and set up 
Courts, and men's minds filled with thoughts of justice. 

Tkrasyllus 

Nay, Caesar, not the gods, but God these fair 
Inventions gave to men. 

Tiberius 

Peace. Thou shalt yet 

Perish of thy wisdom, my Thrasyilus. 

Thrasyllus 

The stars in their courses be against thee, 
Caesar, and 'gainst Rome. Memento crucis! 

(26) 



ACT II. PATMOS 



I, John, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of 
God and for the testimony of Jesus. — Revelation i : 9. 

Monumenta aperta sunt, et multa corpora sanctorum qui dormi- 
erant, surrexenint. Et exeuntes de monvunentis post resurrectionem 
Ejus, venerunt in civitatem, et apparuerunt multis. — Matthew 27:52. 



ACT II. PATMOS 

The isle of Patmos. It is little more than a mass of volcanic rocks 
covered imth stunted cedars and cypresses. In the distant offing the 
sail of a vessel may be discerned. The harsh scream of the fish-hawk, 
and the heavy puffing of the dolphin accentuate the loneliness of the 
situation. In the foreground, amid a grove of dwarf trees on a low 
promontory, is seated a very old man vestured in white and with a staff 
in his thin hatids. His face is that of a mystic, almost shining from 
the spiritual effulgence within his soul. His voice, when he speaks, 
in spite of his advanced years, is astonishingly deep and sonorous . 
It is the apostle John, the last survivor of the twelve disciples of Jesus. 
He is surrounded by seven of his disciples, who lean eagerly upon his 
words. The chief of these is Cephas, whose tenderness and devotion to 
his master is strongly manifested. 

Cephas 

Dear Father, is it true, when Jesus was 
Delivered from the sepulchre, the graves 
Were oped and many bodies of the saints 
WTiich slept arose, and walked in cerements clad 
Into Jerusalem, whom many saw ? 

John (slightly trembling with emotion, and closing his eyes as if 
to recover a vanished dream) 
Children mine, that which I saw with my own 
Eyes shall I declare. But yesterday it 
Seems. These things are true, and I, John, of them 

Witness bear: that which Cephas saith is so 

.... None lives who saw Him in the flesh save me 

To bear that record I, John, who on that 

Night perfidious in which He was betrayed 

Leaned on His bosom Aye, 't is true the night 

He died upon the cross, the dead in Christ 

(29) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



Arose, and came into Jerusalem 

The Son of God expired on the tree 

A frightful tempest o'er the whole land raged. 
I felt the earthquake wherewith Nature, in 

Great awe, shook the foundations of the hills 

Thick darkness covered all the sky; the moon 
Was red like blood; the ground like ashes seemed. 
It was the agony of all things, earth 

And man From Golgotha, how I returned 

To my poor lodging in the city, know 

I not I dragged myself along, feeling 

The hard stones of the path as 't were my feet 

Were eyes. Within the gate I numbly felt 

The walls of houses, touching, as one blind, 

The pillars of the porticos. So worked 

I my way until at last the quarter 

Where the remnant sorrowing of them that 

Loved Him dwelt. .... Jesus' mother followed me, 

With Mary Magdalene. All we did reel 

And stagger in our steps like ships in storm. 

Came Peter, afar off. Among us all 

The bravest were the women. Sad, yet borne 

Up by a noble confidence, these walked. 

The mystery which like a wall blanked us, 

To them seemed as a door whose portal oped 

Upon an undiscovered country, far 

Beyond the sense, or number, time and space. 

.... The storm abated. O'er Jerusalem 

A death-like silence hung. The Pascal moon 

At last from forth behind the wrack of clouds 

Began to look, and shone on Calvary. 

.... Mary Magdalene and I the house roof 

Sought above. Below, within the house, sad, 

(30) 



Zbc Xost ©racles 



And alone, knelt Mary, mother of God 

In prayer for them who slew her Son We two 

In silence gazed upon the red- tiled roofs, 

Beyond the walls into the valleys dim, 

And on the mountains grey with so great grief 

That nature was convulsed Ever our eyes 

To that bad eminence were turned where stood 

Those three trees gaunt against the bitter sky. 

Near us the Temple's mighty dome arose, 

Its dark bulk vague and sinister. In front 

The gorgeous Porch was stretched, from which He drave 

The money-changers and the base born crowd 

Of peddlers who on worship battened Round 

Were spread the houses of the priests, the home 

Of pitilessness, pride, hypocrisy 

.... At midnight the racked moon blew clear. A cold 

Wind rose, colder than Caucasus' iced breath. 

At first it was a murmur, then it seemed 

Like tramp of legions which invisible. 

Were marching on Jerusalem. Soon, soon. 

From all directions — in dry torrent's bed. 

In deep ravines, along the rocky paths. 

Across the vineyards, in the olive groves. 

We saw fantastically moving forms, 

Phantoms in gleaming whiteness clothed, which seemed 

Not so much to be walking as to glide. 

Like unto strips of wind-blown fog Then said 

The Magdalene, "The spirits of the dead 

Are come to seek the living. They that slept 

In ancient sepulchres have waked to greet 

His resurrection." .... By the ramparts stopped. 

The ghostly multitude like water flowed 

Along the walls until the gates were found. 

(31) 



Ube %03t ©racles 



Before the frightened sentries' eyes, dilate 
With terror, this procession of the dead 
Poured through the city gate with silent step 

And slow The mighty past of Israel 

In serried shadows marched. The patriarchs 
Were there with turbans white upon their heads. 
Priests, judges, captains of Joshua who 
Saw the moon stand still on Ajalon. Kings 
Purple-clad, high priests of eld in broidered 
Surplices. Barefooted prophets clothed in 

Camel's hair All in silence onward streamed. 

I saw Isaiah there in robe all flecked 
With crusted blood, walking beside one whose 
Grey countenance with iron lines was graved. 
'T was Jeremias. With a sad salute 

They hailed Jerusalem Behind them walked 

Ezekiel, with look of mystery 
On his thin face. Of sombre grandeur was 
The countenance of Daniel, whose dread words 
Like a scorched flower had withered Babylon. 
.... Anon came figures lamentable, those 
With sorrow bowed, who suffered poverty, 
Who had anhungered, been outcast, the sick, 
Slaves, widows, orphans, all the victims of 
The priests and Pharisees, troops of exiles 
From countries far away, the innocents 

Of Herod's massacre at Bethlehem 

.... With stifled murmurs and with sobbings deep, 

With timid utterance like whispered prayers, 

This haggard legion of the dead enfiled 

Hour after hour before us, while we stood 

Like frozen monuments upon the roof 

And watched All disappeared at last within 

(32) 



Zbc Xost ©racles 



The Temple vast whose great bronze gates, untouched 

By mortal hands, oped wide, and silent shut 

Again The last leaf on the bough am I 

John's voice trails off so that his disciples bend eagerly to hear him. 
As he ceases, over-awed, they silently steal away leaving him alone, 
sitting as if dreaming. 

.... All things continue as they were Rome's rod 

Like iron is upon the nations' backs 

The promise of His coming .... Lord .... how long ? 
.... How beautiful, how beautiful shall be 

His feet upon the hills When shall the last 

Trump sound ? When, when, shall this corruption put 
On incorruption ? . . . . Death, where is thy sting ? 
Or grave thy victory? .... Faith, faith! .... Wait, 

wait. 
In patience. Knowst thou not the martyrs' blood 
Is seed unto the church ? . . . . Faith, faith ! Thy word 
Is lamp unto my feet and light unto 
My path. O soul disconsolate, for his 
Appointed time the vision lingers yet. 
The dreams of saints are God's thoughts after Him. 
The archangel Astrophel abruptly appears before the apostle. 

Archangel 

Apostle John, awake. Because thou wert 

The Son of Thunder called. He that appoints 

The thunder hath sent me. Make haste. Thine eyes 

Shall see the King in all His glory, they 

Shall look upon the land that is far off. 

The Day of Judgment draweth nigh, and thou 

Shall see God sitting on His throne of clouds. 

In intense astonishment a'nd awe John falls upon his face before the 
angel as if in worship. 

(33) 



Zbc %ost ©racles 



Archangel 

See thou do it not. Worship God. Behold 
This wand. I am God's angel messenger 
Unto thee sent to bear thee straight to heaven. 
Terrible things in righteousness await; 
The world's assize impends. For time and times 
And dividing of time be ended now. 



(34) 



ACT III. SPACE: THE SEVEN HEAVENS 



I saw a Point Around the Point a circle of fire was whirl- 
ing .... and this was by another circumcinct, and that by the 
third, and the third then by the fourth; by the fifth the fourth, and 
then by the sixth the fifth. Thereon the seventh followed .... and 
that zone had the clearest flame from which the Pure Spark was least 
distant. — ^Dante, Faradiso, canto xxviii. 



ACT III. SPACE: THE SEVEN HEAVENS 

FIRST HEAVEN 
Space. Nothing is visible except the angel, majestically flying, like 
an eagle, and sustaining the apostle John with his outstretched hand. 

John 

For thirty days these folded mists have we 
Been traversing. Heaven seemeth far to me. 

Angel 

Peace, peace, grave saint. Heaven's golden state is 

bound 
By seven zones of flaming ramparts round. 
Wider than distance be from west to east 
Each several zone. This outer-most is least 
In breadth. Look down, and open wide thy lids. 
What seest thou ? 

John 

Than Egypt's pyramids 

Vaster, and chiselled square, a rock I see; 

Lord Angel, what is it ? Tell unto me. 

Angel 

It is Earth's corner-stone, by God's right hand 
Set there, when God the waters made to stand, 
And separate the seas from the dry land. 
What seest thou upward ? 

John 

I see pillars grand, 

As 't were the fingers of God's mighty hand; 

Each one seems plinthed upon a separate world, 

Their chapiters in cloud and darkness furled. 

(37) 



XCbe Xost ©racles 



The columns vast in Dian's pillared nave 

In Ephesus were but a beggar's stave 

To them compared. What be they, Angel Guide ? 

Angel 

The columns of God's house thou hast descried ; 
These are the pillars of the firmament 
Whereto the rafters of the sky be bent. 
A gigantic door appears. 

John 

Are we now come unto the gate of heaven ? 

Angel 

Thou hast forgotten that I told thee seven 

Zones, and each one wider than the last, 

Encircle space ere heaven is overpast. 

This is the House of Cloud, behind whose hold 

God keeps the woolly clouds in skyey fold. 

On fair days in the earth thou hast espied 

The shepherd winds them drive to pastures wide, 

To feed upon the flowery stars, and crop 

The grasses on the bright moon's mountain top. 

John 

How wilt thou enter ? Is thy magic rod 
Sovran to operate the bolts of God ? 

Angel {making the sign of the cross with his wand before the 
gate) 

Portal to my bidding bowed. 
Open thou the Gate of Cloud; 
Honor this majestic sign, 
Symbol of the Godhead trine. 
The door silently swings open and they enter. 
(38) 



Ube Xo3t ©racles 



space: second heaven 
John 

Lo, sixty days thy potent wings have fanned 
This high, thin atmosphere. Is not thy hand 
Fatigued with bearing me, poor wingless wight, 
Through these dominions of eternal light ? 
Angel 

God's ministers, that on His errands speed, 

His flaming avatars, no respite need. 

The margin of this zone is near. Before 

Thine eyes ere long shall show another door .... 

Lo, yonder. Seest thou not the ancient posts 

Mortised by Him who is the Lord of Hosts ? 

A second door appears. 

This is the Storehouse of the Rains. Lest drouth 
Dry up the earth when hot winds from the south. 
With furnace heat do blow, God doth impound 
The waters here against what time the ground 
Grows parched, when harvests wither up, and hay, 
And men's tongues black with thirst do curse the day. 
Then is the threshold lowered that the rain 
Refresh the earth and make it green again. 
The angel approaches the door and makes the sign of the cross. 

Open, open slide amain, 

Gate of Rain; 
Open, open wide amain, 

Gate of Rain. 
The double doors silently slide open. They enter through. 

space: third heaven 
John 

Four score and ten days are agone, and still 
This vague immensity the eye doth fill 

(39) 



tTbe Xost ©racles 



With nothingness. Nor land nor sea nor star 

Is visible. Above, below, afar, 

Is space, space, space. Its awful amplitude 

Oppresses the imagination. Rood 

Of Christ! How God mankind hath loved, to send 

His Son to that small speck at the world's end ! 

O puny Earth, which thinkest thyself large. 

Thou 'rt but a grain of sand on the far marge 

Of sea so vast the Milky Way's loud roar 

Not even a whisper makes on thy dim shore. 

Man, man, what art thou worth, that God should span 

Eternity and space, thee in His plan 

To take? 

Angel 

Yet man loves God the less, ingrate! 
For that out of the dust God did create 
In His own image him, O gratitude. 
The desert stones than man have more of blood. 

John 

Lo, yonder looms another door more vast 

Than that which held the impounded waters fast. 

A third door appears. 

Angel 

This is the Granary of Snow and Hail. 

Hast thou not seen, when summer 'gins to fail 

Upon the earth, the figure of the Storm 

Stalk o'er the sky, an awful, giant form, 

Flinging broadcast, like sower sowing seed, 

The white flakes of the snow ? With frosty brede 

His coat is wove, and icy are his shoon; 

And while he sows, he sings a boisterous tune. 

(40) 



ZTbe Xost ©racles 



Angel {approaching the gate with outstretched wand and mak- 
ing the sign of the cross.) 

Minions of Snow, 

Minions of Hail. 
God is all mighty, 

His word shall prevail. 
By the splendor of God, 

Whom angels adore, 
By this baton of God, 
Open the door. 
The door opens. They enter. 

space: fourth heaven 
John 

O chartless road in air. For six score days, 

Wingless with winged, I've travelled in amaze. 

Horizons on horizons leap. The noon 

Follows the morn, night treads on noon. How soon. 

Lord Angel, tell me, shall we reach the edge 

Of this celestial zone ? Heaven's glittering ledge 

Seems ever and forever to retreat 

Soever fast we flying follow fleet. 

Angel 

From centre to circumference of space 

Heaven reaches. But the Seventh Heaven's place 

(Centre and core of the celestial sphere), 

Is distant yet for year of days from here. 

John 

Methought the wideness of God's mercy much; 
His spatial attribute seems wide as such. 

Angel 

Patience, apostle John. God's love hath charm 

To reach immensities beyond His arm. 

A fourth door appears, from behind which a dull, but formidable 

growling and roaring is to be heard. 

(41) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



John 

For my timidity mislike me not, 
Great ministering spirit. Tell me what 
Wonders or terrors wait beyond yon door; 
Ne'er thought I heaven terrible before. 

Angel 

This is the Cavern of the Thunders, where. 
Enchained like dogs, the thunders are in lair 
Until what time Jehovah's car and horse 
Ride down the sky in brazen-clangored course. 
Then are these hounds of heaven unleashed to run 
Beside His flaming wheels through cloud and sun. 
Of apparition terrible, and voice 
Reverberant like lion's roar, the noise 
These storm dogs make scatters the stars in flight, 
Moon pales, the great sun veils his ruddy light. 
But be thou not afraid. My sign hath charm 
To shut their mouths. Thou shalt receive no harm. 

The angel approaches the door and makes the sign of the cross. 

Portal of Thunder, 
Ope wide asunder; 
Portal of brass, 
Let thou us pass. 
Ye hounds of heaven. 
By the stars that are seven, 
Shut your fierce jaws, 
Down, down on your paws 
Lest the angel of God 
You scourge with his rod. 

The door opens and they enter. 

(42) 



Ube Xost ©raclea 



space: fifth heaven 
John 

Thrice fifty days, ah me, thrice fifty days! 
Lord God of Hosts, Omnipotent, Thy ways 
Are past the finding out by erring man. 
Heaven hath few milestones mortal eyes may scan. 
The pilgrim road to Palestine, how short 
It was, with this great highway to Thy court 
Compared. Forgive me, God, but heaven is hard 
To reach, its way by mighty bastions barred. 

Angel 

Thou thinkest, John, of time in terms of years. 
Finite art thou. Time unto God appears 
But as the pastime of eternity; 
Years, centuries, millenniums, to thee 
Seem an eternity. But unto Him 
Ages, which unto thee seem hoar and dim. 
Are less than watches in the night — an hour — 
Aye, less, the minutes of an April shower. 

John 

Wonder on wonder piles. I never thought 
God was so great, or such a world had wrought. 

Angel 

Beyond yon cloud of glowing topaz mist 
Thou shalt see loom a gate of amethyst. 
It is the portal of His Arsenal 
Where dreadful lightnings lie and wait His call ; 
Barbed, forked, ball, chain, spearhead lightnings stand 
A-quiver day and night, for God's red hand 
Instant, what time He choose the levin-spar 
Across the frightened sky to hurl afar. 

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John 

I am afraid. 

Angel 

Be not afraid. No harm 
To thee shall come. God vouched to me a charm 
Shall soothe their temper and restrain their ire; 
And quench like rain the hot wrath of their fire. 
Like dogs which leap to lick their master's hand 
They shall be tame with us, and understand. 
A fifth door appears, which the angel addresses. 

By these words which I rehearse, 
By incantation of this verse. 
Portal dread, 
Lift up thy head. 
Livid lightnings, be at ease; 
Vivid lightnings, to your knees. 
The gate rises like a portcullis. They enter, 

space: sixth heaven 
John 

Six times the sickled moon her circle's filled, 
And evening vapors the bright dew distilled 
Since we essayed to cross this zone of light; 
Still, still, good angel, thou thy tireless flight 
Continuest. How far is yet the goal ? 
Days merge with months, the months to seasons roll, 
While we through limnless aether hasten on, 
Like pigeon-carriers towards the dawn. 

Angel 

Thou seest that distant bar of light like gold 
'Neath yonder gate. That is the high threshold 

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Of Palace of the Luminaries, where 

God keeps the stars in day time from the glare 

Of the hot sun, which else might withered be 

By the fierce fervence of his radiancy. 

Each star abides within a separate cell 

As thou hast seen in honeycomb bees dwell ; 

At night, like bees in day time, they fare forth 

Across the skyey fields, east, west, south, north, 

Each with his lanthorn hid beneath his wing, 

Like fireflies around Castalia's spring. 

Within this house is balance delicate : 

According to its light is each star's weight. 

Like jewels; some are ruby red, some blue, 

Some be like topaz, some be dazzling white, 

As lustrous diamonds are they for light. 

The sixth door appears. It is stvdded with precious stones of every 

kind, and has the magnificence of the Apocalyptic description. The 

angel again addresses the door with magical incantation. 

Ruby red, 
Emerald, 
Sapphire blue. 
Ye are called. 
Gate of Wonder, 
Gate of Light, 
Gate of Beauty, 
Beaming, bright. 
Like the moon-moth's fans 
Open thou thy vans. 
The gate opens. They enter. 

space: seventh heaven 
John 

My spirit flies in feathers now. Meseems 
We do approach the haven of my dreams. 

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Angel 

The wall of heaven is great and high and wide, 

And three gates open in each several side; 

Each level of the wall is different stone: 

Jasper and emerald and chalcedone, 

Sardonyx, sardius and chrysolite, 

Beryl and jacinth, pearl and sapphire bright, 

Rose amethyst, green jade and chrysoprase, 

Ligure and turquoise, carbuncle, topaz. 

The seventh gate appears. The angel calls in a loud voice as if hailing 

a sentry. 

Lift up your heads, O gates. 

God's ministering angel waits; 

For I am he whom God late sent 

To earth across the firmament. 
Voice from within the Gate of Heaven 

Who summons Michael, captain of the host 

Of heaven ? Who art thou ? From what distant coast 

Of earth or star or sun art thou arrived ? 

Angel or man art thou ? If man, art shrived 

Of thy iniquities by instrument 

Of Holy Church ? If angel, wert thou sent 

By God's own mandate forth from heaven's gate. 

And now, again, outside its portal wait ? 

Angel 

Lord Michael, I am Astrophel. Awhile 

Ago was I despatched to Patmos Isle 

To bring the apostle John to heaven's gates. 

Much wearied with fatigue, he with me waits. 
Michael {like an army captain giving command) 

Ye gates of heaven on golden hinges hung. 

Swing wide your panels now. Give tongue ! Give tongue ! 

With long, reverberant roar the gates of heaven open. John and the 

angel enter. 

(46) 



ACT IV. HEAVEN: THE LAST JUDGMENT 



I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one 
sat on the throne. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and 
a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in 
sight like unto an emerald. 

And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and 
upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white 
raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. 

And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and 
voices: and there were seven lamps burning before the throne, which 
are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of 
glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about 

the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind And 

they rest not day and night saying. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God 
Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come 

And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to Him 
that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty 
elders fall down before Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast 
their crowns before the throne, saying: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to 
receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, 
and for thy pleasure they are and were created. — Revelation 4:2-11. 



ACT IV. HEAVEN: THE LAST JUDGMENT 

The Heaven of heavens. The ihrane of God, high atid lifted up. 
God, sitting upon the throne, is invisible. His apparition is that of a 
gigantic ruby-darting flame through a cloud of incense which hangs 
as a canopy over and around the throne. Seven rainbows are arched 
over the throne. Four archangels flank the throne on either side: 
On the right, Raphael, Saraquel, Remiel, Azrael; on the left: Michael, 
Raguel, Zophiel, Uriel. Seven lamps, from which vari-colored 
exhalations rise, burn on the lowest step of the throne, behind each of 
which stands an angel trumpeter. At the left front is a squadron of 
cherubim; at the right front a squadron of seraphim. Sitting in double 
row, in the center, in front of the throne, are the four and twenty 
elders, clad in white raiment, and facing the throne. Behind them 
are ranged the noble army of martyrs, clad in red robes and wearing 
crowns. When they worship they fall on their knees, with foreheads 
bowed in obeisance upon the floor of heaven in adoration. The train of 
God fills all the temple of heaven, above and behind the throne. As far 
as eye can reach it is a vast panorama of themes, theories, and rectitudes 
of myriads of angels gleaming in white array, stretching even unto 
the outer court of heaven. An old man stands, an isolated and rapt 
figure, in the middle foreground. It is the apostle John. 

Grand Chorus in Heaven 

O Thou great One, before whose awful nod 

Thrones and dominions tremble and do swoon: 
Thy ways are on the sea, the mountains trod 

By thy bright feet smoke hot beneath thy shoon. 

The thunder is thy voice, the levin-spar 

That lambent leaps from cloud to cloud thy glance ; 

Moon pales, the sun grows chill, and every star 
Hides from the storm of thy dread countenance. 

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Far as the Milky Way o'er space extends, 
Where zoned Saturn drives his chariot flight, 

Themes, theories and rectitudes ascend 
Of hierarchic angels gleaming bright. 

Jasper and sardonyx and jacinth pave 
The parvis laid before thy burning chair, 

O'er which, as 't were auroral architrave. 
The Seven Rainbows of the Presence flare. 

Before thy throne in flaming rhythm whirled 
The cherubim and seraphim adore: 

Maker and Sovereign, Judge of the World, 
From all eternity for evermore. 

With twain coruscant wings their face they hide, 
With twain their feet, with twain they fly along; 

Like voice of falling waters in a tide 

Of dreams the beat of their celestial song. 

Seven Lamps, the which seven sleepless angels are. 
Do guard the seat wherefrom thy glories blaze; 

Seven Trumpeters, and each a jeweled star. 
Herald thy power, O Lord, Ancient of Days. 

Chorus of the Four and Twenty Elders 
Heard were the prophets, 

Heard were the sages, 

The seers and the mages, 

In vain through the ages; 

Void were the pages 
Of Babel and Tyre, 

The confusion of Egypt, 
Gomorrah's dread fire. 

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Chorus of the Cherubim 

The seas in terror crawl, 

The continents do shrink; 
The mountains, toppling fall, 

The isles of ocean sink. 
The rivers swoon with dread, 
The sea gives up its dead. 

Pharpar and Abana 
Their fountains bright withdraw 
To subterranean cisterns deep. 
But earth, with a great shout, 
Shall spew their waters out. 
High as the stars the frightened waves shall leap. 

Antephony of the Seraphim 

Now Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, 

Moloch and Rimmon fail; 
Chemosh withers, Dagon droops 

With Merodach and Baal. 
Soon, soon, shall blow His breath 
On mooned Ashtoreth. 
Egyptian Isis' eyes 

Are red with weeping for 
Osiris. Dead he lies. 

His worship is no more. 
Peor and Baalim 
Are fallen now with him. 

Ode of an Angel 

God is not prey to sleep and slumber; 
Naught to Him is time and number. 
What was before He knoweth ; 
What shall come after showeth; 

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All space, all time, He filleth; 
Men grasp but what He willeth. 
The earth is His, and heaven, 
The stars, the planets seven. 
Of nothing hath He need. 
With Him who shall dare plead ? 

Voice of the Revealing Angel 

Apostle John, knowst thou what these things be ? 

John 

No, Lord. Heaven is too wonderful for me. 
Who art thou, pray ? 

Voice of Revealing Angel 

I am a Voice. Hear thou: 
The line of His confusion shall God draw 
Across the face of the whole earth this day. 
The valley of decision shall be choked 
With multitudes of perished men. The son 
And moon shall darkened be; the stars shall fall. 

The Four and Twenty Elders rise and receive John into their midst. 

Chant of the Four and Twenty Elders 

What doth the past require ? the future hold in store ? 
No more is past or present. Forever, ever more, 
While sinners suffer fires that never shall go out, 
The saints in heaven shall praise God's mercy with a 
shout. 

Enter the Revealing Angel. 

Revealing Angel 

In the beginning God 
Stretched forth His awful rod 
And called the world from darkness into being. 

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He fashioned the dry land, 

He bade the waters stand; 
The darkness from the light He made went fleeing. 

Cattle and creeping thing and bird, 
Beauty of flowers and trees and grass came from 
His word. 

Observe ye every thing: 

Stars in their journeying, 
Sun, moon, in their appointed orbits glide; 

Betimes they rise and set, 

Nor e'er His love forget; 
In rhythmic order flows and ebbs the tide. 

His wisdom rules both works and days; 
And all, the recreant heart of man except, obeys. 

Summer and winter time, 

April and autumn's prime, 
Beneficently change and alternate. 

Trees bare with winter's rage 

Blossom with foliage 
When spring comes up the land with step elate; 
And 'neath her vaporous touch the streams 
IVIurmur and talk like happy children in their 
dreams. 

Rivers have flowed forever 

Seaward, yet ocean never 
Hath over-flowed the goal of ordinance; 

The new fallen mask of snow 

Performs its task below, 
Warming the seed beneath its white expanse; 

The winds, which messenger God's will, 
And thunder, uttering God's voice. His law fulfill. 

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Man only, rebel man, 

Rejects the heavenly plan ; 
Corrupting what were perfect otherwise. 

His selfish purpose sterile 

Hath put the earth in peril, 
And God repents He made man in His^'guise: 

His fan is in His hand, the cup. 
Red w^ith His righteous indignation, is filled up. 

The Flood was all in vain; 

Gomorrah's fiery rain; 
Babylon, Ninevah no lesson hath. 

No saving remnant more, 

No grape from cluster, nor 
Frantic prayer shall moderate His wrath. 

His truth and justice stand. Behold, 
The sombre leaves of the great Judgment Book unfold. 

The Seven Angels, bearing the Seven Vials of the Wrath of God, 
appear. The vials are in the form of huge, glowing urns. Their 
covers are sealed. 

Imprecatory Psalm of the Martyrs 

God of the ages, known of old 

Through prophet, priest and sage. 
Bring Thy redeemed into Thy fold, 

And claim Thy heritage. 
Avenge Thy martyred saints, O God, 
Who for Thee thorns and ashes trod. 

Bind Thou the nations in Thy hand 

As reapers bind the corn; 
Against their names for ever stand 

Imperishable scorn. 
Pronounce on them the doom of Tyre; 
Save us, but melt the world in fire. 

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Let them be torn with fear, and gnaw 
Their tongues for anguished pain. 

'T is time, who clave unto the law, 
Should gift of merit gain. 

The pagan heart hath built on dust: 

Thy word and sacrifice we trust. 

Make them to drink Thy cup's red wrath 

Who made us sup of theirs; 
Through blood and torment be their path, 

Who marked us for our prayers. 

Red be Thy garments like the dress 

Of him who treadeth the wine-press. 

A prolonged blast of trumpets by the Seven Trumpeters before the 
thrane. Enter Gabriel, the Strong Angel of the Book of Judgment, 
with the Great Book of Judgment in his hand. 

Gabriel 

The Lord leaned out of heaven's window bright, 
Broidered with trellised stars and tendrilled light 

To see if there were any righteous man, 
And none there is, not one, that doeth right. 

Hear, all ye nations, and give ear, O Earth. 
Before the bar of God come prove your worth. 

The years of many generations end. 
The great world, gravid with the sins of birth, 

Groaneth and travailleth upon her path 
Among the stars, nor rest nor respite hath. 

God's patience is o'erborne. His finger-ring 
Is wrapt around the chalice of His wrath. 

Out of His hand is no deliverance; 

He works and who shall let ? His glance 

Embraces space, time and eternity. 
Matter and mind, men's souls and circumstance. 

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Red is that wine of which mankind shall quaff; 
Red are His garments; iron is His staff 

Upon the nations' backs; and He that sits 
Above the circle of the heaven shall laugh. 

The doom of nations draweth nigh, thus saith 
The Lord. The stars already pant for breath; 

Earth's surface 'gins to creep like serpent's skin, 
Alone the just shall see this Day of Death 

And live. Hot fires and molten flames unquenched 
Shall lap the world, mountains and hills be wrenched 

From their foundations, and thrown in the sea; 
Men shall be torn with fear, their faces drenched; 

Blood shall exude from wood; stones utter speech; 
The sun withdraw his light, the moon beseech 

The sun for heat to warm her frigid disc; 
Reason shall hide; wisdom forget to teach; 

Sown places shall appear unsown, as by 
Black magic done. The birds from all the sky 

Shall disappear; sweet water bitter turn. 
From all the earth a lamentable cry 

Shall rise. But He that sitteth in the heaven 
Shall laugh. For seventy times seven 

Hath He forgiven man. Like fuller's soap, 
As a refiner's fire shall the leaven 

Of His red wrath accomplish, till destroyed 
Is the whole earth which once He joyed 

To make. Heaven only shall survive this day, 
And Hell, suspended in the fearful void. 
Raphael undertakes to intercede for condemned man. 

(56) 



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Rapil^el 

Have mercy on whom Thou wilt mercy have, 

O Lord. Compassionate Thou erring man, 

Else in deaf ears do heaven and earth Thy praise 

Extol. Drive Thou away with Thy heart's hand 

From face of Thy remembrance memory 

Of man's first disobedience. Wilt thou 

Iniquities of fathers visit on 

Their children and their children's children through 

Unnumbered generations. Lord ? Hast Thou 

Forgot Thou didst the Flood repent ? and hid 

Thine eyes when bloated corpses floated o'er 

The turbid waters like dead reeds ? how Thou 

Didst stop Thy nostrils from the stench of vile 

Corruption, which in exhalation foul 

Arose from earth ? Rememberest Thou, Lord, 

How even as frightened dogs the angels crouched 

And cowered 'neath Thy throne, for fear the Flood 

Would suck them down like men ? Wilt Thou repeat 

What Thy foreknowledge knows Thou wilt repent ? 

Uriel {deeply shocked at Raphael, argues for God) 
Who dare to question God, or argue with 
The Almighty ? Raphael, these words of thine 
Become the fallen Lucifer, not thee. 
Yet shall I answer thee, although not for 
Thy reasoning, but for indulgence of 
Thy charity. Just as the husbandman 
Much seed doth sow upon the ground, and yet 
Not all which sown were shall, in season due. 
Be reaped, so also they that in the world 
Are sown shall not all garnered be. It must 
Needs be that some seed corn, for lack of rain 

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Or tilth, or peradventure choking thorn, 
Shall perish. 

Raphael 

Aye. But if the soul no root 
May take, whose is the fault ? Not every soul 
Is amply watered by the waters of 
God's spirit. Yet whose is the soul hath not 
The germ of God within ? For justice do 
I plead, not for compassion, Uriel. 

Uriel 

Each one his righteousness himself shall wear; 
Each one his own unrighteousness shall bear. 
As the ground lies, so is the sowing; 
As there is credit, so is there owing; 
As the tree falls, so must it lie; 
As is the flower, so is the dye; 
As is the workman, so is his labor; 
As there is plow, so is there sabre. 

During the course of this argument the Voice of God has not spoken, 
although the wrath of the Deity at Raphael's questioning of His 
justice has been manifested by a deeper flare of the ruby Light on 
the throne, and a lessening of the flame of anger when Uriel argued 
for God. 

John {rises from among the Four and Twenty Elders, and inter- 
cedes for sinful man) 

O Lord, thy servant suffer, if thou wouldst. 
To intercede. Give unto men seed of 
New heart whence fruit may grow whereby they may 
Yet live who bear thine image. All we like 
Sheep do stray. Of one fashioning are we, 
And Thy devizing. When Thou quickenest 
The body which Thou fashionest within 
The womb, both that which keeps and which is kept 

(s8) 



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Is of Thy keeping. And when, at nine moons' term 
The womb gives up Thy creature, it is Thou 
Commandest breasts of milk to nourish it. 
Wilt Thou, God, slay what Thou has quickened ? or 
Thy creature kill ? If with light word Thou shalt 
Destroy what Thou hast framed, then unto what 
Design are men made ? Travelled have I much 
Through the nations, and seen much. When was it, 
Lord, the inhabitants of earth before Thee 
Did no sin ? Few, few. Thou mayest find who 
Have Thy precepts kept in spirit and in 
Truth. But nations none. 

Voice of God 

Thou thinkst the way of 
The Most High to comprehend. Behold, shall 
I set three similitudes before thee; 
If one of these thou canst declare then will I 
Teach thee evil's origin. Come now: weigh 
The weight of fire for Me, or measure Me 
The measure of the wind, or else recall 
Me yesterday. 

John 

Who of earth can so do 
That Thou shouldst ask me ? 

Voice of God 

If I had thee told 
To plumb for Me the ocean's depth, or asked: 
Where is the dwelling-place of light ? or what 
The breadth of earth is, then thy ignorance 
Had not thee shamed. But I have only asked 
Of fire, of wind, of yesterday' — things which 
Thou canst not be without. And yet thou hast 

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No answer pertinent. Familiar things 
Art thou incapable to understand. 
How shouldst thou comprehend the ways of God ? 
John 

Yea, Lord. Yet it had better been that man 
Had been created never than have come 
Into the world to live in sin and pain, 
And know not why he suffers. 

Voice of God 

I shall be 
Lenient with thee, apostle John; that thy 
Simplicity may understand shall I 
A parable tell unto thee. Once on 
A time the woods and trees went forth and took 
Deliberation, saying: "Come, let us 
Go forth and make war 'gainst the sea, that it 
May be retired, and we may have more land 
For woods. But, Lo, the counsel of the trees 
Was vain. For fierce fire came and utterly 
Destroyed the woods. Then took the ocean's waves 
Encouragement, and said: "Go to, let us 
Make war against the land that we may have 
More room." But then the sand stood up in heaps 
And choked the estuaries with great dunes, 
That ocean's stream was split, and dammed his tides. 
If thou, apostle John, hadst been a judge 
Between them, whom wouldst thou have justified, 
And whom condemned ? 

John 

The counsel of them twain 
Was foolishness, O Lord. For to the trees 
The land has been assigned, and to the sea 
A place to bear his waves. 

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Voice of God 

Thou hast judged right. 
But hast thou not given judgment 'gainst thyself ? 
For as the land has been assigned to woods, 
And depths unto the sea, even so hath man's 
Dominion and his function been assigned. 
My ways are not the woods' ways, nor the sea's 
Nor man's. For God's ways are inscrutable. 

Intercessory Prayer of the Saints 

Judgment and justice are the dwelling of thy throne; 
Power, kingdom, glory, honor, sovereignty alone 
Pertain to Thee. Let not Thy righteousness forget 
That truth and mercy, too, before Thy seat are met. 
Thou madest of one blood all nations for to dwell; 
All men Thy offspring are, O God. Wilt Thou to hell 
Damn all ? For wickedness of some condemn the race ? 
Millions there be who blindly grope to find Thy face. 
Can man know more of God than God wills man to see ? 
As in a glass men catch but broken lights of Thee. 
Thou hast seen children play with dolls in nursery; 
Thou knowest that to children dolls real people be: 
Men be but grown-up children. Figurines of clay 
And stone and wood they reverence. Wilt thou, God, say 
The savage's dark mind is one at enmity 
With Thee because of ignorance ? Afar off he 
Pursues some spark of fire by thine own spirit fanned, 
Some lamp, some "light that never was on sea or land." 

Imprecatory Protest of World-Philosophers and 
Teachers, ascending from the Earth below 
Base Deity, how mocking is thy word. 
Who claimeth to be just, who power had 
To make earth's children good instead of bad, 

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And yet omnipotently hath preferred 

To make them bad ; who mightest have averred 

Their happiness, yet chose to make them sad. 
He were a coward worshiper, to make 

Propitiation unto Thee, as though 
His were the sin, not thine. 'T is men who owe 
Human forgiveness Thee. Thou shalt not shake 

The rod of thy injustice thus 
Without protest from us. 

monstrous masquerade of Deity! 

For Thy sin chastening him. What mockery! 
Thou mouthest justice, yet inventedst sin; 

Pratest of mercy, yet devizedst hell. 
Thou hypocrite, create new heart within 

Thyself, ere Thou to others virtues tell. 
Heaven were hell with Thee! Forfend that lot! 
And hell a heaven, so Thou wert not. 
Thy wrath shall Thy own self consume, O Lord. 
Wretch, coward, cruel, insensate and abhorred ! 

Angry rejoinder of the Voice of God. The Light on the throne blazes 
with awful splendor. 

Voice of God 

Be still and know that I am God. I AM 
THE GREAT I AM. By will I save, I damn. 

1 make alive, I kill. I sent the flood ; 
I made the Nilus river run with blood; 

All Egypt's first-born sons were slain by ME ; 

I sank the host of Pharaoh in the sea; 

Horses and men; I sent the fiery rain 

Which overcame the cities of the plain. 

I am a jealous God. None other gods 

Shall be. The strong, the proud, I break with rods. 

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I think, I calculate, I make, I form. 

The sea unto its bed returns. The storm 

Is of MY doing. Blades of harvest corn 

Balance themselves in wind, yet are down shorn 

By reaper's scythe. Men march in caravans 

For their appointed stage. MY vision scans 

Past and futurity. The dust flies from 

The rim of time's swift wheel; the cities, dumb 

With pain, collapse at word of MY command. 

ME all shall fear, nor hope to understand. 

My word of desolation goeth forth; 

To right and left it flies— east, west, south, north. 

Like dromedary loosed 'mid standing corn 

I tread down whom I will. I whelm with scorn. 

The earth is MINE, and men are MINE— their thought, 

Their implements, the things which they have wrought, 

The soil they till, the metals they do mine. 

Their souls, their sons, their sons' sons — all are MINE. 

The Seven Angels of the Seven Vials of the Wrath of God raise the 
lids of the vials. Dense, acrid, lurid smoke wreaths issue therefrom, 
which vaguely take human form, and begin to gyrate weirdly and to dance. 

Incantatory Dance of the Seven Smokes 
Worst is best, and best is worst; 
First is last, and last is first; 
With sinful man is earth accursed. 
No more are truth and mercy twin; 
God's justice o'er His ruth shall win. 
Now is truth danger 

Unto ruth; 
Now is ruth stranger 

Unto truth. 



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His nostrils' breath 
Suspires death. 
God's laugh 
Like chaff 
Before the wind, 
Shall blow 
Below 

Souls of mankind. 
Hell's jaws are wide; 
See, see the fire; 
Woe, woe betide 
Who feel His ire. 

Dirge of the Doomed ascending from Earth 

Midian's curtains tremble, Kedar's tents are bare; 
Laughter is but madness, mirth is dull despair. 
Hath earth a refuge now, where all the mountains smoke ? 
The seas steam 'neath God's wrath. Can we their 

depths invoke ? 
Though higher were we than vultures, or hid within the core 
Of Caucasus, what matter when God goes forth to war ? 
Oh, truly light is sweet, and pleasant is the sun: 
Cometh the Great Darkness, and death to every one. 
The day of darkness comes. Alas, how long, how long! 
The silver cord is loosed, and broken is the song. 
The grinders cease from grinding, sadly the mourners go ; 
All music's lovely daughters faces wan do show. 
The cistern's wheel is broken, the flagon by the well; 
The earth's sweet life doth perish as we go down to hell. 

Sweet, sweet to us is breath, 

While we go down to death. 

Sweet, sweet are lovers' kisses; 

Sweet, sweet a mother's blisses; 

Sweet, sweet are baby hands; 
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Sweet, sweet the light that lies 

In baby eyes, 
Big with the large surprise 
Of birth in what far faery lands. 
Stay, stay, the word of Thy prediction ! 
Stay, stay, the day of our aflfliction ! 
But let us longer live, for that Thou mayst; 

Yea, let us live, O Lord of Life. Restore 
The lovely earth Thy wrath would haste to waste 

To heritage of harmless life once more. 
By all the love that ever woman bore 
For man, by all the love of man for wife, 

By all the love of little children for 
The breasts which nourish them, O leave us life! 

Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims tlie doom of Egypt) 

The doom of Egypt is decreed. Behold, 

Out of the south the waters of the Nile 

Shall come in overflowing flood. They shall 

O'erflow the land and all that is therein. 

The cities great and all that there do dwell. 

Thy men shall cry, thy women wail. All thy 

Inhabitants shall howl. The waters of 

The Nile shall compass them about, even 

Thy soul, O Egypt. Noisome weeds shall be 

Wrapt round thy head. The land thou swimmest in 

Shall blood become even to the hills which edge. 

From pools which, since befell the deluge, have 

Remained, Behemoth hideous shall rise. 

What bloody Nilus spares, he shall consume. 

A team of monstrous and hideous hippopotami, harnessed to a 
chariot which is driven by Typho, the Egyptian god of evil, appears.^ 

' If I have introduced more theriomorphic actors than appear in the 
Apocalypse, I have not exaggerated the crassness and superstition of the popular 
Christian mind of the first century. 

(6S) 



xrbe Xost ©racles 



Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doofn of Babylon) 
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. GOD 
Thy days hath numbered. It is done with thee, 
Mother of Harlots, Babylon the Great. 
In place of dragons red, where since the Flood 
Hermaphroditic beasts and monsters dread 
Have slumbered, fierce Leviathan awaits 
Thee. Like a lion roused up by the swell 
Of Jordan he shall come. From river bed 
Of Tigris, from Euphrates' reeds, he shall 
Arise. Thou shalt not draw him by a hook; 
The doors of his dread face thou shalt not shut. 
His eyelids be like eyelids of the morn, 
And very terrible. Out of his mouth 
Go sparks. His neesings shake the ground. With him 
Comes Gorgon, at whose name the world shall grow 
Pale with dread. Ho, Leviathan, come forth! 
A team of huge crocodiles appears, yoked to a chariot driven by 
Gorgon. He is formidably armed and armored. 

Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Tyre) 

O Tyre of the Zidonians, O thou 

That dwellest upon many waters, end 

To thee is come. The sea's strength shall not save 

Thee, O thou shameless one. A dragon lies 

In cavern couched for thee. When he shall leap 

The sea shall flee, Orontes river hide 

Among his flags, and cover up his face. 

Rahab, come forth! 

Rahab, a formidable dragon of antediluvian time, reputed to dwell 
in the depths of the Dead Sea, appears. 

Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Phrygia) 
O Phrygia, O Phrygia, with thy 
Abominations infamous hast thou 

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Defiled all Asia. Hark, a dreadful doom: 
Lay now thy hand above thine eyes, since thou 
Shalt see a sight right terrible. For God 
A monstrous serpent hath commanded : He 
Shall bite thee with his fangs, his venomed breath 
Shall melt thy bones. Though deeper yet thou dig 
Than Cappadocia's mining-shafts, or hide 
Thyself within the clefts of Caucasus, 
His fangs shall find thee and his coils shall crush. 
Aksar, come forth! 

A gigantic violet-colored snake, seventy cubits in length, appears. 
It has a trilobite crest and two teeth, one in each jaw. It is the great 
serpent Aksar, which Arabic legend says once frightened Moses when 
alone in the wilderness. 

Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Persia) 
Iran! Iran! God's wrath the whirlwind rides. 
The storm His chariot is. Beneath His feet 
The clouds are dust. Lo, now His cavalry 
Cometh against thee, horsemen terrible, 
Horses than leopards swifter, fiercer than 
Wolves. Thy pleasant fields shall they destroy. 
The north and south shall be consumed by them. 
When they shall touch Iran the land shall melt. 
The hoofbeats of their steeds shall beat thy soil 
As on an anvil iron's hammered out. 
Hail, Phobos, not for naught thy name of Fear. 
A team of white horses, prancing violently and neighing furiously, 
appears, attached to a chariot in which sits Phobos, the Genius of 
Fear. 

Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Hellas) 
Howl, Hellas. As a potter treadeth clay 
Shall God tread thee. He shall not spare. Even as 
The breaking of a potter's shard shall God 

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Break thee in fragments. Run thou to and fro 
Between thy hedges green and ripening vines; 
Press thou thy hands upon thy loins, for thou 
Shalt travail like a woman great with child, 
And none be to deliver Malek, come. 

A team of jet black horses appears yoked to a chariot in which sits a 
dark and forbidding figure, attired like a Chaldaean charioteer. 
Malek means commander. 

Gabriel (blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Rome) 
Wail for the multitude of Rome whose graves 
Now yawn beneath their feet. Rome's site shall sink 
Into the nether part of earth. Behold, 
The Lord shall rend the ground. By earthquake great 
Shall God plead with thee, O infernal Rome. 
Where tarryest thou. Mors ? Why is thy car 
So long in coming ? Wherefore are thy wheels 
So slow ?....! hear the stamping of the hoofs 
Of thy strong steeds impatient of the bit. 
A team of blood red horses appears, yoked to a chariot in which stands 
the grisly figure of Death, erect and terrible. 

The Seven Angels of the Wrath of God, with flaming swords, parade 
before the throne. 

The Seven Angels of the Wrath of God 
The wine of His communion cup 

To scarlet ichor turns; 
The bread of life men used to sup 

Like bitter wildroot burns. 
Cry haro ! Let loose down the wind 
The hounds of heaven upon mankind! 

Voice of God 

Fire, Water, Stormy Vapors, Hail, Snow, Wind, 
Go forth. Devour the whole earth, and behind 

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Let pestilence and famine stalk, until 

The world be all consumed. Such is MY will. 

Blow Lebanon and Carmel clean of trees; 

The rivers fill, throw mountains into seas; 

Blot out the stars and sun, to ashes turn 

The moon; with quenchless fires let ocean burn. 

Across the universe shall MY red wrath 

A road of desolation cut, like path 

Of reaper when the corn is ripe for blade. 

Go forth, and utterly destroy the earth I made. 

Forthwith the whole celestial company disappears. The Light of God goes 
out upon the throne. The roof of the temple of heaven is rolled together 
like a scroll by a terrible wind which arises. An earthquake follows. 
The floor of heaven cracks and is heaved up, and water gushes out. A rain 
of blood pours down, intermingled with hailstones. The thunder and light- 
ning become terrific, the roar of the earthquake and the voice of the tempest 
appalling. Finally thick darkness falls, and a silence ensues that seems to 
be palpitating and alive, and to be pacing back and forth in the dreadful 
gloom like some unseen beast of prey in a jungle. 



(69) 



ACT V. THE LOST ORACLES 



Dark the shrine and dumb the fount of song thence welling, 
Save for words more sad than tears of blood, that said: 

"Tell the king on earth has fallen the glorious dwelling, 
And the water springs that spake are quenched and dead. 

Not a cell is left the God, no roof, no cover; 
In his hand the prophet laurel flowers no more." 

They are conquered, they break, they are stricken. 

Whose magic made the whole world pale; 
They are dust that shall rise not nor quicken. 

Though the world for their death's sake wail. 

— Swinburne, The Last Oracle. 



ACT V. THE LOST ORACLES 
SCENE I. EGYPT 
Interior of the Temple of Isis at Memphis. The appearance is that 
of vast rectitiidinal lines, both vertical and horizontal, the geofmtrical 
form of the structure heightening the impression of indestructibility 
and eternal duration. A forest of pillars of cedar, sycamore, and 
cypress wood supports the roof. By a clever architectural device the 
illusion is that of the roof floating like the sky above the heads of the 
worshipers, an ejffect accentuated by the sky-blue vaulting, in which 
bright gold patens glow like stars. This imitation of the large impress- 
ion of nature is continued along the side walls, the pilasters seeming to 
be palm tree trunks, their tops terminating in the graceful, featfiery 
crests of that tree, while the wall spaces are ornamented with flying 
birds. So, too, the pillars are chased with papyrus steins, as if the 
trees were growing up out of a clump of them. A gigantic frieze runs 
around the four sides of the interior, in which one vaguely distinguishes 
allegorical and mythological scenes, the meaning of which is inter- 
preted by huge panels of hieroglyphic inscriptions inlaid with colors, 
after the manner of ancient Egyptian writing, which divide the whole 
painting into separate pictures. 

The fore part of the nave is bright with sunlight; in the middle part 
the sunshine is strained through stained glass windows in a kind of 
clerestory, giving that air of mystery which was so striking an attribute 
of Egyptian worship. Two immensely long violet-colored curtains 
which fall from a cross-beam of the ceiling, and are but half drawn 
back impart the impression of a reredos dividing the nave from the 
holy of holies. The ejffect of distance created by this ground-plan is 
enhanced by the gradual diminution of light, and the gradual elevation 
of the nave and aisles, so that the perspective is more than normal. 
The air is redolent with odors of frankincense and galbanum, and 
music of a strange, sombre beauty, half voluptuous, half sorrowftd, 
faintly pulsates i?t the heavy air. It comes from behind the violet cur- 
tains, and is that of lutes. 

The action begins in the fore-court of the temple, in front of the 
imposing faqade, and in a blaze of sunlight. In the dry climate 
the air is of almost incandescent purity, and in the translucent 

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atmosphere the entablature of the temple, the pylons and the points 
of the obelisks which adorn the approach stand out with startling 
clarity. First come in procession twenty-four priestesses of Isis, 
their heads and faces muffled in glittering white, transparent veils, 
and robed in white; then twenty-four priests of Isis, dressed in 
white linen; over their shoulders are hung leopard skin capes; 
their heads are tonsured and gleam with nard; they walk with 
a languid, sinuous motion as if unconsciously simulating the lithe 
gait of a leopard. Both priests and priestesses carry acacia wands, 
and gold or silver sistra, with which they keep up an incessant, 
low tinkling. Last of all comes the high priest of Isis, his vesture of 
white cendal bordered with a deep purple fringe, and on his head a mitre 
in the front of which is fixed the cross of Isis. On his breast is a kind 
of ephod, richly jeweled, in the shape of a crescent, the sacred symbol of 
the goddess. His hands are gloved in white kid-skin gloves. His 
shoes (as well as those of all the others) are made of bright Tyrian 
leather, and have gilded soles. 

Chant to the Nile (the choir of priests and priestesses 
marching down the nave of the temple, singing) 
Olden stream! Golden stream! 
River of our thought and dream. 
Where lieth that mysterious spring, 
Mother of thy issuing ? 
Where are those boon fountains, 
Hid in what Moon Mountains ? 
Men say thy annual rise is 
Due to the tears of Isis 
Mourning for lost Osiris 
'Mid reeds and flags of iris. 
Hail! Hail! Mysterious River, 
Bountiful Life Giver. 
From the grey Moon Mountains far, 
Where the jewels of Ophir are. 
Thou dost come with magic stealth, 
Dowering the earth with wealth. 

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Without thee Eg>'pt's land 

Were of swart and barren sand. 

River of God, thou makest the barley grow; 

Com for bread dost thou on man bestow; 

Thou waterest the ridges of the field; 

The furrows settlest that they may yield. 

Of thy gift, too, is seed in man; 

The child within the womb thy plan. 

The river-horse and crocodile 

Worship thee, fair river Nile; 

Thee papyrus and date palm 

Greet with decorous salaam. 

Thee Morning waits with trembling lids; 

The stony-hearted Pyramids 

Watch where thy deep current thrids. 

Even, 't is said, the hoary Sphinx 

Each midnight of thy water drinks. 

O guardian Nile, vouchsafe for aye 

Thy smile on Egypt, else we die. 

The choir of priests and priestesses, at the threshold of the holy of 
holies separates into two bodies, letting the high priest of Isis alone 
pass through the midst of them. The music of the lutes throbs more 
sorrowfully than ever. The light in this chamber of the God is very 
dim. Within the chamber is a missive porphyry sarcophagus, on 
the lid of which, as on a bier, is sculptured the recumbent figure of 
Osiris. The body is draped, but the face is bare. It is a countenance 
of great dignity and majesty. On Osiris' head is the white crown of 
Upper Egypt. In his hands which issue from beneath the pall are 
a sceptre and a scourge, the characteristic emblems of the God. At the 
corners of the sarcophagus stand four sculptured lions. Four hawks, 
representing the four children of Horus, each with the banner of 
Eorus in its beak, hang suspended over the tomb. A fifth hawk is 
perched upon the breast of Osiris, and is gently fanning his face with 
her wings as if to restore hijn to life. It represents Isis. 

(7S) 



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The High Priest (breaking the clay seal of the grille which 
separates the holy of holies from the nave) 
Clean of heart and clean of hand, 
Goddess, I before thee stand. 
Broken is the clay, loosened is the seal: 

Holy One, O Holy One, Thy love reveal. 

Voice of the Oracle 

1 am whatever was, or is, or shall 

Be, and my veil no mortal ever raised. 

High Priest 

Sweet goddess, comforter of man's distress. 

Pour forth on us thy draught of deathlessness. 
The Choir of Priests and Priestesses 

Children are we in darkness pent; 

Like desert bedouin in tent, 

To-day we dwell. To-morrow, Oh, 

Who knows which way the wind will blow ? 

Whether for us the dawn will glow, 
To-morrow ? 

Goddess, let us from Thy store borrow 

Strength for weakness, joy for sorrow. 

Death stands before us with his smell of myrrh; 

Life swiftly flows away like bright water. 

Intonation of Choir 

Mooned mountains, 
Sunny plains, 
Deserts wan, 
Watery mains. 
Rivers running into seas, 
Lichens growing into trees. 
Animal and plant their span 
Of the universal plan 

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Fulfill since when time began. 
The child is father of the man, 
And God is father of us all: 
O Father, hear Thy children call. 

The cold figure of Osiris seems to grow warm in the dim obscurity. 
A faint tinge suffuses his cheeks. His hands move slightly. The 
hawk {I sis) upon his breast beats her wings furiously and screams as if 
in ecstasy. The fumes of incense rise and curl in thick clouds. The 
choir chants, at first softly, and then with the rapture of song, to the 
quicker music of the lutes. 

Choral Chant 

List, O list, beneath my feet 

I feel the pulse of earth; 
The throb of the eternal heart 

That giveth all things birth. 

Hist, O hist, within my ear — 

Far-called, a voice — a voice. 
Creation's song of songs I hear, 

O soul of mine, rejoice. 

Kissed, O kissed, upon my lips 

The wine of God I taste: 
Drink, drink, my soul, to death's eclipse. 

O soul of mine, make haste. 

Life, O life, and ever more 

More life be all my quest. 
There is no Past, there is no Fore, 

Nor north, nor east, nor west. 

The High Priest {standing on tlie threshold of the chapel of the 
holy of holies, and raising his hands as if in a benediction) 
God sitteth on the flood. Rejoice. 
Nile riseth. Make a joyful noise. 

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The choir forms in procession, and to the now joyful sound of sistra, 
tabers, flutes, and drums played by a band of choir boys which joins 
them, begins to dance rather than to march down the nave of the tefnple. 
Suddenly the sunlight, which hitherto has shone brightly, pales, and 
a yellowish-green light suffuses the great interior. A low, angry 
roaring is heard. The company of priests, priestesses, and choir 
boys shows visible agitation, but keeps its formation. 

High Priest 

Lo, the voice of many waters. Nile, Nile, 

Egypt's sweet land shall blossom 'neath thy smile. 

A long, tongue-like stream of water comes running swiftly aiid sinu- 
ously down the floor of the nave, the crest of the wavelet erect like a ser- 
pent's head. Wave follows wave with a sinister sotmd, half hiss and 
half roar, until the worshipers are splashing to their knees in the flood. 

A Priest 

The Nile hath overflowed his banks; 
The Nile hath burst his earthen tanks. 

A Priestess (shrieking) 

Egypt, the Nile shall drag thee down; 
Egypt, the Nile shall thy sons drown. 

High Priest 

Deep calleth unto deep. 

Hear ye his water-spout ? 
Death calleth unto death, 

I hear his mad waves shout. 

A Priest 

Flood! Flood! Flood! 
A Priestess 

Blood! Blood! Blood! 
A Priest 

The flood shall suck us down. 

A Priestess 

In blood shall we all drown. 

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By this time the water has risen to the waists of the company, and 
gleams with the purple-red tint of fresh bullock's blood. The whole 
group manifests the wildest conster>mtion. In the midst of the uni- 
versal terror a gigantic hippopotamus appears swimming down the 
flooded nave, bearing the body of a young girl in his formidable jaws. 

A Priest {wildly shrieking) 
Worse, worse, worse. 
Curse, curse, curse. 
The river-horse with dripping jaw. 
The river-horse with giant maw. 

The Hippopotamus {snorting furiously) 
Blood, blood, who would think ? 
Blood, blood, for me to drink! 
Meat, meat, human meat, 
Human meat for me to eat! 
Sup, sup. Behemoth, sup! 
Up, up, eat Egypt up! 

The yellowish-green sutdight goes out in a flash of darkness. The 
walls of the temple fall in with a thunderous roar, the columns and 
pillars crumble and topple over into the water. The bubbling cries 
of human beings in the agony of drowning are heard, commingled 
with the furious snorting of the hippopotamus. Finally thick darkness 
and silence settle down. 



(79) 



SCENE 2. BABYLON 

The platform of the great Ziggurab, or Temple of Bel and Istar in 
Babylon. The structure is a huge tower made of earth and faced with 
sun-baked brick mortared with bitumen, composed of seven massive 
quadrangular blocks, each one smaller than the one below it, so that 
the effect is that of a series of gigantic terraces tapering upward to a 
flat top, or platform. A half cosmological, half religious symbolism 
is represented by the structure, the seven stories symbolizing the seven 
planetary deities whom the Babylonians believed to be mediators 
between heaven and earth. An inclined roadway, or ramp, wide 
enough for four chariots to be driven abreast, zigzags upward around 
the tower. In the Babylonian religion the long and arduous ascent of 
this roadway was a meritorious approach to the gods, the pious per- 
formance of which conferred grace or indulgence upon the actor, much 
as the ^^ stations" in the church of Rome are reverently traversed, one 
by one, by worshipers. The exterior walls of the temple are faced 
with richly colored glazed tiles and embellished with enormous human- 
headed and winged btdls carved in alabaster. The outer edge of the 
roadway and platform are guarded by a brick parapet. Black basalt 
"metae" or posts, covered with hieratic inscriptions in cuneiform 
writing, mark the turnings in the roadway. 

The great, richly adorned altar smokes with sacrifice. The air is 
redolent with the smell of burning flesh commingled with the odors 
of incense and the aroma of spices. As both Night and Morning were 
worshiped by the Babylonians under a variety of names, the god Bel 
being a Sun-God, and Istar, the Moon-Goddess, being primarily an 
evening deity, the hour is midnight, halfway between the Night and the 
Morning. Flakes of fire blown by the high wind traverse the darkness 
like flying stars. Two theories of priests, fourteen {twice seven) in 
each theory, are officiating before the high altar. One company of them 
is attired in white linen robes broidered with gold Babylonian figura- 
tion; the other is similarly clad, but the brede of their robes is blue 
instead of gold. All wear high, peaked caps or hats, those of the first 
company of priests having a blazing sun affixed in the front; those 
of the second company wearing a crescent moon and stars. The High 
Priest is attired in white and gold raiment, but wears a sort of tiara to 

(80) 



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distinguish him. All the priests except the High Priest carry golden 
censers which they ceaselessly swing. The whole platform roundabout 
the altar is crowded with richly clad tiobles and gentle ladies of the 
court, atid civil and military officials in great profusion. The road- 
way below, on every level, is packed with the populace of Babylon. In 
the moonless night the vast city lies dimly outspread, the silver ribbon 
of the river being especially conspicuous. In the far distance the 
great walls of Babylon, with their huge bastion towers darkly sil- 
houetted against the sky are discernible, the whole effect giving the 
weird impression of a gigantic antediluvian dragon sleeping coiled 
around the city. 

First Theory 

O Bel, King of Blessedness, Monarch of high renown, 
Thy sceptre is in Babylon, Borsippa is thy crown. 

Second Theory 

O Bel, who dwellest in the Temple of the Sun, 

Shower down and pour thy mercy great on Babylon. 
High Priest 

The circuit of heaven and earth is thine; 

The song which gladdens the heart is thine; 

The breath that giveth Hfe is thine. 

First Theory 

O Thou who destiny decreest for distant days, 
In heaven are thy ways. 

Second Theory 

O Beautiful, whose knees do ne'er grow weary. 
Hear me. 

All the Priests 

Thy strong command in heaven is proclaimed ; 
Thy strong command o'er earth is flamed. 
At thy command the storm and darkness passes ; 
When thy command goes forth, the earth blooms green 
with grasses. 

(81) 



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High Priest (intoning) 

The fear of God endeth strife; 
Contrition wipeth away sin. 
Sacrifice prolongeth life; 
Prayer doth renew the heart within. 

All the Priests (turning to face the people) 
Narrow are the mansions of our souls, 
Enlarge thou them. 

High Priest 

Thy pilgrim people sigh for Thee, O Bel. 

All the Priests 

Dust and ashes are we before Thee. 

First Theory 

How deep are all Thy ways, inscrutable. 

Second Theory 

Thou only great that silent art on high, 
Whose fairness maketh all things fair. 

High Priest 

Come imto us, O thou of the four winds, 
Who breathest spirit into hearts of men; 
Whose muses hymn thy glorious name; 
Whom the eight wardens guard. 

All the Priests ((chanting) 

Thy years fail not. 

Thy years are one to-day. 

How many of ours and our fathers' years 

Have flowed away through thy To-Day, 

And others still shall flow away. 

But thou art yet the same, O Bel. 

All things of Yesterday, 

All things To-day, 

Thou hast done. 

Eternal One. 

(82) 



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Prayer (intoned by choir of priests) 
The quiet rest of night, 

The day which hfts, 
The darkness and the light, 

These are thy gifts. 
O that we, too, hke morn, 

Might be reborn. 
Shadows from our poor past 
On eternity's radiance cast 
Stains we would outblot. 
O Bel, remember not 
Our thoughtless life, 
Our envious strife; 
Chasten and deepen our heart, 
Help us to choose the better part; 
Make sense of thy great nearness fill 
Our minds, our hearts, our will. 
Keep thou, O keep, our eyes from tears. 
Our feet from falling, and our souls from fears. 

Hymn to Bel 

Thee, Thee we seek, who makest 

Orion, Pleiads' skein; 
Thee, thee we seek, who shakest 

The bottles of the rain. 
Thee, thee we seek, who fillest 

All the air with light; 
Thee, thee we seek, who millest 

The floury snowflakes white. 
Thee, thee we seek who foldest 

The waters in thy hand; 
Thee, thee we seek, who boldest 

The rain for the dry land ; 

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Thee, thee we seek, who warmest 

The blessed earth below; 
Thee, thee we seek, who formest 

The seed so that it grow. 
Thee, thee we seek, who knittest 

The child within the womb ; 
Thee, thee we seek, who sittest 

By them within the tomb. 

High Priest 

The feet of the goddess Istar we kiss and wash with tears. 

First Theory 

Convert thy wrath to mercy. Remember not past years. 

High Priest 

May the wrongs which we have done be as a tale that's 

told; 
Cast our transgressions from us as a garment that is old. 

Second Theory 

Let the flowing waters wash us, that we be clean to behold; 
Make us pure of heart within like sheen of sparkling gold. 

Hymn to Istar 

Istar, Goddess of morning, 

Light of the eastern sky, 
Istar, horizon-adorning, 

List to thy children's cry. 
We entreat thee, be not thou scorning, 

Else we die. 

Would that, even as art thou. 

We were effulgent and bright; 
Give, O give us the heart now 

To live and to die for the right. 
Day Star, vouchsafe us a part now 

Of thy Hght. 

(84) 



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Istar, Goddess of even, 

Thy foot on the western steep, 
From the gold threshold of heaven 

Shower down thy blessing of sleep; 
Bid the Moon and the Stars that are Seven 

Our ward keep. 

Istar, Goddess immortal. 

Remember the children of clay; 
All we must pass through the portal 

Of Death, and know not the way: 
For we are of seeds that are mortal, 

Thou art for aye. 

Of a sudden the stars are blotted out, and a low, sullen moaning of the 
wind is heard which rapidly rises to a shriek and a roar. The torches 
gutter and go out. The odors of the holocaust are scattered to the four 
winds. The air is filled with a thick, dense cloud of fine dust. It is the 
Simoom. Consternation seizes upon the worshipers, who fight for 
breath in the strangling darkness. Many of them run to and fro in 
great dread. Others fall to the ground prostrated. 

Voice of the Simoom 

Punishment cometh from the desert. 

And destruction from the waste places. 
Thy men shall gnaw their tongues with pain, O Babylon, 
And black shall be all faces. 

A Priest 

Babylon is fallen, fallen, fallen, 

And all the images of her high gods. 
Thou who wert over the nations 

Art now bescourged with rods. 

Meanwhile the terrorstricken multitude upon the roadway }ias broken 
away in a wild panic, and has begun to retreat down the inclined 
slopes. But a terrible cry arises from the vanguard, which arrests 
the crowd's advance. In the melee men, women, and children are 

(8s) 



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thrust over the parapet and Jail shrieking from the dizzy heights. A 
troop oj huge crocodiles led by a moftster saurian appears, ramping 
up the roadway, bellowing like bulls and snapping their frightful 
jaws as they advance. 

The Crowd 

Leviathan, Leviathan, comes up from Tigris' slime. 
Leviathan, Leviathan, besmeared is he with rime. 
Flood-begotten, 
Mud-begotten 
Monster he of prehistoric time. 

His dreadful jaws 
Be armed with saws; 
His mighty tail 
Is like a flail; 
His carrion breath 
Foredoometh death. 

Chorus of the Crocodiles 

From caverns bHnd to stars and suns, 

Where Raksh, the evil river runs; 

From caverns subterranean, 

From caverns measureless to man. 

We come, we come. Leviathan. 

Before our eyeballs' shine 

Men's blood runs cold like gelid wine. 

Fire our spittle is; 

Men's flesh between our Jaws, 

Like faggots, brittle is. 

With horny paws. 

With hungry maws. 

With bellies cavernous, 

With famine ravenous, 

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We seek whom we devour. 
Now is the awful hour. 
'Ware, 'ware our reptile line; 
'Ware, 'ware the saurian sign; 
Not Gorgon's glance more terrible than 
our fierce eyen. 

The wind rises to a furious hiirricajie. The air is filled with dust 
and flying debris. The temple tower collapses with a dull roar. The 
darkness becomes appalling. In the universal confusion are heard 
the cries, shrieks, moans, weeping, wailing of men, women, and chil- 
dren, commingled with which are the fearful bellowings and gnashing 
of teeth of the crocodiles. Gradually silence ensues. Ruin invests the 
scene. Babylon is reduced to a heap — a confused array of tnounds 
around whose bases the sullen waters of the Tigris river lap and lick. 



(87) 



SCENE 3. TYRE 

The gorge of Aphaka, at the source of the river Adonis, halfway 
between Byblus and Baalhec. The river emerges as a rushing torrent 
from a grotto or cavern at the foot of a mighty cliff, which itself is part 
of a huge amphitheatre of towering cliffs, and plunges in a series of 
three cascades down the vale. The higher walls of rock are denuded 
of vegetation and fissured and cracked with alternate heat and frost. 
But the lower strata are covered with lianas and vines, clinging to the 
crannies and interstices in the face of the rock. Here and there fan- 
tastic natural buttresses protrude. So lofty are the walls that goats 
browsing along the edge of the precipices appear like ants. Against 
the patch of Tyrian blue sky overhead an eagle may be seen wheeling. 
The temple, sacred to the worship of Attis and Tammuz, is built of 
massive hewn foundation blocks of syenite granite, but the Ionic 
columns are of marble. It is little more than a roof resting upon 
pillars, and without side walls, covering the '^ place, ^^ the way to which 
is indicated by sacred striped posts called asherim, themselves also 
phallic emblems. Many ancient religious beliefs and practices had 
their inception in the processes of vernal nature, and were various 
manifestations of nature translated into the form of magical drama. 
Even when not converted into a religious symbolism these phenomena 
were often yet invested with personality, thus giving rise to myths of 
many kinds, but especially solar myths. In Genesis 4g : ii-ij, the 
story of Judah and Tamar, we have a solar myth, or a mythical picture 
of the sun pairing with the vegetation of the earth in springtime. So, 
too, there are solar mythical elements crystallized around the tale of 
Samson and Delilah. No one of these ancient nature "mysteries" 
is more intense, or more beautiful, when rightly read, than the worship 
of Attis and Tammuz. Although somewhat gross and sensual among 
the Zidonians and Phoenicians, the Greeks etherealized this nature 
worship in the legend of Aphrodite and Adonis. Indeed, the vale of 
Aphaka is the original site of the myth, where the red tint of the stream 
in the spring, owing to the red soil roundabout, and the myriads of 
red-colored flowers, especially the anemone and the hyacinth, gave birth 
to the legend of the mortal wound suffered by Adonis, who is the Greek 
Tammuz, the Semitic word of honorable address, "adonai," or "my 



Zbc Xost ©raclcs 



lord," being mistaken by the Greeks for a proper name. The worship 
ofAttis and Tammiiz, since it was Jundafnentally an adoration of the 
procreative force of vernal nature, made a peculiar appeal to women. 
It even influenced Judaism. For Ezekiel 8: 14 mentions the "women 
weeping for Tammuz" on the north side of the temple in Jerusalem, and 
so late as 400 A.D. according to St. Jerome, the worship of Tammuz 
prevailed at Bethlehem. The veneration of the Virgin in the church 
of Rome is a form of worship of this Virgin-Venus force, so potent 
and so creative, which penetrated into Christianity, and stUl persists, 
although the token has been lost. Unfortunately protestantism, 
in its revolt again^ Roman Catholicism, has wholly destroyed the 
sentiment. Puritanism converted sensuousness into prudery by 
corrupting the origi'nal idea of virtue, with the result that the world 
is aesthetically and spiritually the poorer. That sensuous imagina- 
tion which endowed so many of the pagan ctdts of antiquity with 
beauty lias been crushed. 

Attis, under the form of a beautiful and sensuous woman, was the 
incarnation of the productive capacity of natural farces, sunlight, 
moonlight, sky, winds, rain, to fructify the earth, represented by 
Tammuz under the guise of a young and very beaiitiful youth. The 
double worship of the two symbolized in a religious "mystery" the 
magic drama of the spring, when the cold and apparently dead, but 
actually only sleeping earth, gradually wakens to new life {hence 
Tammuz is a youth), under the warm kisses of the sun and the touch 
of vernal winds. 

The goddess is attired in a sky-blue robe broidered with stars and 
blazoned with the signs of the zodiac. Her long hair flows free, and 
seems an aureole around her head. Her neck and throat and bosom 
are bare, as are also her feet. Her breasts, as white as curded cream, 
are not concealed, attd the pinks upon their hill-tops are red as anem- 
ones growing in snow. Her hands are filled with violets and hya- 
cinths. The seemingly dead body of Tammuz lies covered with 
J^owers.^ Under the temple roof the altar smokes with incense. The 
"gain," or priests, wear purple robes fringed with stars; their breasts 
are bare atid tattooed with a pattern of ivy leaves. The "damsels," or 
priestesses, are similarly clad, but their breasts are unadorned; their 
hair flows free over their shoulders. All, priests atul priestesses, are 
barefooted. The musical instruments are cymbals, castanets, drums 
(for the monotones), and flutes. 

(89) 



tlbe Xost ©racles 



The action takes place in a natural meadow immediately in front of 
the temple, which is surrounded by venerable walnut, oak and sycamore 
trees. The deep green of the verdure in the bottom of the vale, with 
the white, flashing stream coursing through it, sharply contrasts with 
the red and yellow tints of the cliffs and the patch of blue sky above. 
Scarlet anemones, red and purple hyacinths, violets, and red roses 
diadem the ground. 

Hymn to Attis {galli and damsels standing with upstretched 
hands) 
Mother and Queen of Heaven, Goddess, haste, 

Down from the sun where is thy bright abode; 
Vouchsafe thy love to man, for that thou mayst. 

Hark, how in ode and palinode 
We chant thy praises, divinest power. 
See how with hyacinths and roses sowed, 
The portals of thy temple are bestrowed. 
Incense from Kandahar afar, 
Myrrhodion in golden jar. 
Woo thee as spring winds woo the flower, 

Attis appears walking out of the temple, with slow step and downcast 
eyes. She is weeping. When she reaches the recumbent figure of 
Tammuz, she breaks into passionate sobs, and scatters the flowers 
over his corse. 

Monody by Attis 

Here hungry generations tread 

Each other down; 
Too soon the Hving are the dead, 

The flooding years soon drown 
All that the mind and hand hath wrought, 
All things man's made or fancy thought. 

Spring Song {damsels, marching in a circle around the body 
of Tammuz. From time to time one of them cuts off her hair 
and flings it down upon the corse) 

Dead to time and space and number, 
Sleeps the seed in winter slumber; 
(90) 



Zbc Xost ©racles 



Cold clay wraps its tiny form. 
Broken boughs and leaves encumber; 
Chill the snow and harsh the storm. 

Galli {moving in a circle around the inner circle of priestesses) 
Be not downcast, O despondent 
Heart of man. Soon, soon, respondent 

To the Spring's warm touch a blossom 
(Harbinger of corn abundant), 
Shall emerge from earth's warm bosom. 

D.\MSELS 

Lapt within the mother's womb, 
Mankind's marvellous nursery room, 

Nine moons long, like seed in earth, 
Sleeps the babe, until the doom 

Of nature opes the door of birth. 

Galli and Damsels {singing together) 

Life, Life, Life! Chmb, Climb, Climb! 
Song, Song, Song! Chime, Chime, Chime! 

Spring after winter is on the wing. 
Time, Time, Time! Rhyme, Rhyme, Rhyme! 

God is Life, and Life is everything. 

Tammuz stirs slightly like a sleeper waking. At the faint sign of 
life Attis, in an abandon of joy and passion, kneels down beside him, 
kisses his mouth, his forehead, caresses him, presses her glowing 
bosom against his breast, and even seems as if to give him suck. She 
typifies the sunlight shamelessly caressing earth. 

Attis (singing) 

Is it death, or swoon, or sleep 

That holds him in her quiet arms ? 
Death is death. But sleep brings dreams 
Which stir the sleeper with their charms. 

(91) 



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See .... he moves. It is not death : 
Mouth, forehead, cheeks grow roseate; 

Moist the hair upon his brow; 
His eyes half ope with thought elate. 
Aitis throws herself upon the body of Tammuz, every accent of her 
voice, every movement of her body and limbs bespeaking excessive 
sexual passion. She tears away the flowers which cover Tammuz, 
and lying close to him, puts her rosy thigh against his, as if she would 
charm from him that seed of life, that seminal radiance, that male fire 
which she so craves. Slowly Tammuz wakens. Finally he rises up, 
smiling, and with a half abashed look in his youthful face. Attis, 
radiantly happy now, takes him by the hand, and blushing and smil- 
ing, leads him towards the temple, where the last act of the symbolical 
marriage of earth and sky was consummated. 

Choral Rhapsody {danced with frantic ecstasy) 

O floreate Earth, where flowers spring. 
O aureate sky, where the stars swing. 
O laureate air, where skylarks sing: 
Give, O give us of your gladness, 

Your rich life bestow. 
Teach, O teach us half the madness 
That your souls do know. 
Abruptly the sky takes on a fearful glare, and a rain of fire begins to 
fall. The temple breaks into flame, Attis and Tammuz come running 
forth from it with wild cries of alarm. The priests and priestesses, 
in dire terror, huddle together and vainly hold up their instruments 
in order to ward ojf the drops of living fire. The fire runs through 
the grass, withering the flowers. The trees begin to smoke in the 
fervent heat. In the midst of the cataract of flame the great dragon 
Rahab emerges from the cavern from which the river Ado7iis springs. 
With one gigantic leap he gains the meadow in front of the temple, 
whose shrivelling structure he beats into flakes of fire. 

The Dragon 

The stagnant waters of the Dead Sea, dark 
With over-hanging clouds, where stark 

(92) 



Xlbe X09t ©racles 



The bodies of the drowned dead swing, nor rot, 

Me, Rahab, dragon of the wrath of God, begot. 

When God cleft chaos by His word, 

And stars and suns and earth averred. 

And cleft the waters from the land, 

And made the mountains to upstand, 

He left the Dead Sea's pool 

Exception to the waters' rule— 

A bit of chaos still, a lake 

Wherein no man his thirst may slake; 

A sea wherein no fish e'er swims; 

Whose shore no flag nor herbage rims; 

A sea whose breath 

Exhaleth death; 

Across whose face no bird may wing; 

A sea which has no living thing 

Save me. I slake my thirst with brine; 

For food I sulphur eat; 

Hot brass and iron are my meat. 

My lungs breathe smoke instead of air; 

A pit of pitch-slime is my lair. 

The dragon coils himself like a huge anaconda around the bodies of 

Attis and Tammuz, which he proceeds to devour, while the frightened 

group of worshipers, too terrified to flee, stand in a huddled mass. 

Priests aistd Priestesses 
Fire, fire, fire. 
Tyre, Tyre, Tyre. 
Lament, lament, lament. 
The floor of hell is rent; 
The Dead Sea's womb is split. 
From his dread pit. 
The dragon Rahab's crawled, 
His eyes like emerald. 

(93) 



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His tongue is molten lead for heat; 
Iron is his belly, brazen are his feet. 

Dragon {gohheting a morsel of human fiesh, and belching flame 
from his nostrils) 
Luck, luck, luck! 
To eat a goddess like a duck! 
To dine on limbs like these for meat ! 
Attis' breasts be morsels sweet; 
Tammuz, thy body is fair flagon, 
With good wine filled, for a dragon. 

Threnody of Priests and Priestesses 
Tyre, Tyre, Tyre, 
The music of thy viols 
Is silenced now. 
Tyre, Tyre, Tyre, 
God hath poured out His phials 
Of wrath upon thy brow. 
Askalon, thou desolate shalt be; 
Anthedon, thou execrate shalt be. 
Daughters of Tyre, 
Cut off your hair; 
Blackened by fire 
Your faces fair. 

Turban thee with black cloth. Tyre. 
Girdle thee with sackcloth, Tyre. 
Woe, woe, woe, 
Now Tyre is brought low. 

The voices of the singers grow fainter and fainter until, at last, men 
and women are sunk into one crumbled, shrivelled heap of human 
remains — in one red burial blent. The fiery rain ceases to fall, and 
a red and acrid smoke envelopes everything. Through the scarlet 
obscurity the dragon, now gorged, heavily drags himself away into 
the cavern in the face of the cliff. 

(94) 



SCENE 4. PHRYGIA 

Phrygia, the mountainous interior portion of Asia Minor, where 
are the sources oj the Sangaros, the Rhyndacos, the Hermos and the 
Meatuler rivers, was the original hotne of the worship of Cybele, the 
incarnation of the maternity of Nature in the form of a woman. 
Cybele hears resemblance to Attis among the Syro-Phoenicians, to 
Demeter among the Greeks, to Bona Dea among the Romans. The 
generative faculty of nature was extravagantly adored by the Phrygians 
in a mystery ritual in which phallic emblems and sexual symbolism 
were employed to an intense degree. The worship was eminently 
naturalistic. But under the refining influence of Hellenism many 
of the grosser characteristics of the worship were relieved or elimi- 
nated, so tliat the cult of Cybele approxitnated to, and was even 
fused with, the worship of Aphrodite. 

One of the saddest things pertaining to the history of Greek religion is 
the degeneracy of the worship of Aphrodite. Usually conceived as 
the goddess of sensual lust, actually Aphrodite was one of the fairest 
and divinest concepts of the Greek genius. Originally she was the 
Queen of Life, the idealized personification of the creative power of 
nature. She was the beauty and power of Nature incarnate. The 
fall of man, the breaking up of the Golden Age of the gnomic poets, 
was the end of the reign of Aphrodite. The degeneration of Aphrodite- 
worship was the prostitution of the functional production of life to 
sensual gratification by which the elemental beauty of her worship was 
debased and then destroyed. The fruit it bore was bitter and rotten. 
As the late John Addington Symonds has written in his "Studies of 
Greek Poets," with reference to Sappho atui the Lesbian school of 
poetry: "The passions which for a moment had flamed into the gorgeous- 
ness of art, burnt their envelope of words and images, and remained a 
mere furnace of sensuality, from which no expression of the divine in 
human life could be expected." But as it is not just to judge of the 
beauty of the human form and the function of the human body by its 
lesions in disease, so it is not just to judge the worship of Aphrodite- 
Cybele only by its baser and more debauched manifestations. At its 
highest and best it was very beautiful. 

(95) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



The temple is that of Cybele- Aphrodite near Pessinante, in a gorge 
of the Sangaros river. The edifice is of white marble in the Ionic 
style of architecture — an architecture singularly feminine and chaste, 
so to speak, contrasting with the sterner, masculine Doric, and the rich, 
hut weaker and degenerate Corinthian, which was the rococo of the 
ancient Greeks. In form the temple is a roofless quadrilateral. At 
the corners of the faqade are pedestalled griffins, with lifted talons, 
beaks wide open, and having woman's breasts. Within, in the center 
of the roofless temple, standing on a pedestal of bluish-grey marble, as 
if to typify the sea whence she arose, is a Parian marble statue of 
Aphrodite Anadyomene, cold and clean, naked and chaste, the visible, 
embodied symbol of the most beautiful thing in nature, the female 
form divine. The late afternoon sun of springtime bathes the figure 
in rosy shadows. A flock of pigeons, birds sacred to Venus- Aphrodite, 
sit around the interior ledge of the quadrilateral, cooing softly. Aphro- 
dite stands as if listening to their dulcet notes, with a far away wistful 
look in her eyes as if she saw, too, the sea whence she derived her birth. 
The statue is the supreme product of Greek sculpture, radiantly 
expressive of mind and soul as well as of physical beauty. The 
pedestal is situated in a tiny garden brillant with hyacinths and red 
roses. In front of the statue is an altar ornamented by a crystal ball at 
each angle. The smoke of incense is slowly curling upwards. The 
odor is that of myrrhodion, the champagne of incenses, which imparted 
an exquisitely light and volatile sense of intoxication to the worshipers. 
The action takes place on a marble parvis before the altar. From this 
point of view the pine trees on the surrounding hills stand out with dark 
and majestic dignity, being actually pointed firs fretted against the 
western sky, now bright with azure, rose and pearl-grey lights. Both 
priests and priestesses, of which there are eighteen, evenly divided 
between the sexes, are clad in pure white linen robes with fluted purple 
borders. Each priest carries a calathos, or white wand in his hand. 
The priestesses, technically called "dactyls," carry Lydian pipes, and 
a few of them have tambourines. 

Pbiests and Dactyls {together) 

Whist, O whist, Aegean wind, 

She is too pure for thy warm kisses. 
Go, woo the violets entwined 
In Arcady's deep vale of blisses, 
(96) 



Ube %03t ©racles 



Priests {singing, con sordino) 

Daughter of Phrygia, veil those eyes of thine, 

Their beauty pierceth me; 
Blinded by loveliness divine, 

I can not see 
The altar of thy worship, nor the shrine. 
Daughter of Phrygia, reach thy hand. 

I, too bewildered worshiper, 

A baffled wanderer. 
Thy hand in mine, my hand in thine, 
Guided by thee, O then shall understand. 

The Dactyls {to music of a soft Lydian air) 
Breathless with adoration 

The moon and stars do stand; 
Mute with sweet contemplation 

Silent lies all the land. 
The rose her petals showers 

In the soft evening air. 
And all the other flowers 

Seem kneeling as in prayer. 

The Priests {standing erect, hut with their hands over their eyes, 
as if the goddess were too pure for mortal eyes' to regard. The 
dactyls, kneeling behind them, play so softly upon their pipes 
that the music is barely audible as a low undertone, and seems 
to come from the upper air rather than from the instruments) 
Pure as the dew of the damask rose, 

Sweet as the breath of violets, 
Soft as the light at even's close. 
Tender as plaint of flageolets. 
Dear as remembered kisses seem 

Of youth's sweetheart one half forgets, 
Fleeting as melodies in dream, 
Or April showers wet. 

(97) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



Thy beauty baffles every sense, 

O more than rose to me. 
Odors of galbanum and myrrh, 

What are they, close to thee ? 
O Soul as white as heaven, 

What are snows to thee ? 

All rise, and an exquisitely beautiful dance of priests and priestesses 
is begun before the altar, in which the litheness, the lightness, the 
symmetry of the Greek body is manifested almost in perfection. Before 
beginning each actor takes a handful of bright and very fine sand, 
which glitters like gold dust, from a shell-shaped vessel not unlike a 
holy water basin inform, and scatters the sand upon the floor. As they 
dance the brilliant particles are distributed like a host by their flying 
feet, so that the air becomes that of a golden mist, an effect enhanced 
by the rays of the late afternoon sun shining through. 

Choral Dance 

With dactyled beat 

Of twinkling feet, 

Clothed in a mist of motion. 

We dance and flow 

As waters go 

From mountain source to ocean. 

Time chimes, 

Life cHmbs, 

The sun is in heaven. 

The earth's in God's hand, 

The piUars of truth 

Ever shall stand. 

Suddenly the tender daylight goes out, and the sky becomes ashen-grey 
in hue. The pigeons, with frightened cries, take flight. While the 
happy worshipers are standing in mute wonderment at what has 
happened, the head of a gigantic violet-colored snake with a trilobite 
crest rises menacingly over the architrave of the temple. His body 
rapidly follows in huge, scaly coils. Simultaneously the great bronze 
gates of entrance to the temple are shut with brazen clangor, as if by 

(98) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



an unseen hand, thus locking the priests and priestesses within. Too 
petrified with fear to cry out or run, the hapless company stands mute, 
while the python sinuously advances and slowly folds his coils around 
the figure of Aphrodite. In the semi-darkness his eyes glow like 
carbuncles, and a fetid fume is ejected from his mouth which at last 
overpowers all. 

The Snake 

Hell's gate's ajar. 

I am Aksar, 

The avatar 

Of God's red Justice flaming far. 

I come with doom 

Forth from the gloom 

Of subterranean brake 

Beside Avernus lake. 

I am Aksar the Snake. 

Moses I frightened in 

The wilderness of Sin; 

When Greece, in ages gone, 

Made war 'gainst Ilion, 

The priest Laocoon 

With his three sons I choked, 

While Troy with burning smoked. 

Off of Charybdis' rips 

I lie in wait for ships 

What time the red moon drips 

With storm, and tempest lips 

Wild gales blow up that sweep the decks 

Of laboring ships. 

And pile with wrecks 

The iron coast of Sicily 

And reefs of Lipari. 

My sinewy coils can Taurus range 

Into a heap of crushed rock change. 

(99) 



TTbe %OBt ©racles 



The darkness is as light to me, 
The frightened day from me doth flee. 
Full well, full well, ye know your lot, 
Laocoon is not forgot. 

As this awftd chant proceeds the worshipers gradtially sink down 
to the pavement and fail. The darkness becomes complete. But from 
the carbuncle-like eyes of the great snake there is light enough to 
discern his python folds coiled around the figure of Aphrodite, his 
sinister, forked tongue licking her body. The slime with which the 
serpent covers her gives ojff a baleful, phosphorescent glow in the dark- 
ness. He is the visible embodiment of all that is horrible, the incarna- 
tion of a desolation not m^ely physical, but of the soul. 



(loo) 



SCENE 5. PERSIA 

A wide plain in Iran. The hour is just before sunrise in the spring. 
On the flattened top of a knoll is a square altar built of stones, on 
which a fire of faggots and aromatic herbs is burning. Five priests 
in brilliant red robes {to simulate the sacred fire), with veiled faces and 
gloved hands, in order not to pollute the holy flame by either breath 
or touch, are officiating. Save for the vesture of the priests the apparatus 
of worship is simple, even primitive. The worshipers are gathered 
around the knoll. In the darkness their rude shepherd costumes are 
but vaguely discernible. Farther out beyond the ring of men and 
women the forms of cattle, horses, and sheep feeding or at rest may 
be descried. Against the grey horizon line, toward the east, where the 
sun is just beginning to relieve the black wall of cloud, the peaks of 
some of the huge, round skin or felt tents of the Persians are outlined 
like silhouettes. 

The ancient Persians were a pastoral people, dwelling with their flocks 
and herds on the high and windy plateaus of Iran, and kept the 
primitive faith of Zoroaster long after the more cultivated and refined 
urban populations of the great cities like Ctesiphon and Susafell away, 
or fused the ancient belief and ritual with those of other cults. The 
Persians were Jiot idolators. They venerated the greater manifestations 
of nature. Wind and rain, tempest and sunshine, day and flight 
were regarded by them as special theophanies of one supreme God, 
namely the Sun. For this reason Fire was regarded as holy, and 
was the chief medium of their worship. The Sun was the symbol of 
light, of goodness, of mercy, of justice, of virtue. Naturally this 
way of thinking ultimately led to a dualistic form of belief. The 
antithesis of light being darkness, of day being night, of white being 
black, of good being bad, of right being wrong, of justice being injustice, 
belief in a god of evil was gradually developed in the Persian mind. 
Both were personified, God, or "Good," under the name of Mazda, or 
Ahuramazda, whose chief archangel was Mithras, or Light, originally 
thought of as a manifestation of the sun, but who later absorbed or 
effaced Ahuramazda, giving rise to Mithraism, the form of Persian 
worship which prevailed in the time of the Roman Empire. From 
the Persian personification of the Spirit of Darkness and Evil came 

(lOl) 



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the Satan, or Prince of Darkness and Evil, of Christianity, the Tempter 
who carried Christ up into a high mountain and ojffered him all the 
kingdoms of the earth if he would fall down and worship him. The 
founder of the Iranian religion was Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, who 
perhaps flourished about looo B.C. In the Avesta we have the Bible 
or Koran of the Persians. In it, however, Zoroaster has ceased to be 
a great religious teacher and become an energumen, much as the 
supernatural and miraculous Christ-God succeeded the man and 
religious teacher called Jesus. 

Priests (singing) 

Change, change, change! 
Range, range, range! 
Strange, strange, strange! 
Nothing's ever twice the same; 
Nothing lasts. Life is flame, 
A moment kindled. 
Then to socket dwindled. 
Time and flow 
Wash all below. 
All things swiftly go. 
Whither? Whence? 
Impermanence 
Pervades all things. 
Moon's wanderings — 
The stars in their courses 
Speed like chariot horses; 
Winds blow as they list. 
Come and go, dost thou wist 
Whence they come or whither go ? 
Thence ? Thither ? 
Whence ? Whither ? 
Dost thou know ? 

The High Priest throws new wood upon the fire, which blazes brightly, 
illuminating the dark faces of the throng gathered around. 

(102) 



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High Priest 

The eternal God is Fire. 

His voice is in the thunder. 
Priests 

ffis whisper is in the wind. 

The dawn is his, for he made it. 
High Priest 

The twilight is his, for he made it. 

Night and day are of his generation, 

Of thy generation, O glorious Sun. 
Priests 

The sky is the cape of his shoulders, 

The earth is his footstool. 

High Priest 

Rain and snow are manifestations of thee. 

All things grow through thee, and without thee 

Doth nothing grow that hath Ufe. 

Priests 

Who determineth the path of the stars ? 
Whose power makes the moon to wax and wane ? 
Who upholds the earth from beneath ? 
And keeps the firmament from falling ? 

High Priest 

Who milks the clouds, and sendeth rain ? 
Who hath yoked swiftness to the wind ? 
What artist made light and darkness ? 
Who giveth his beloved sleep ? 

Priests 

Who numbereth the winkings of men's eyelids ? 
Who calculates the pulse-throbs in the wrist ? 
Or measureth the breath of every one ? 
Who createth welfare and giveth immortality ? - 
Who is the source of right ? 

(103) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



All 

GOD. Even the Sun, which is the brightness of his glory, 
And the express image of his person. 

High Priest 

Great is the might of song. 

It has made men out of stones, and men out of beasts; 

It has composed the world in melodious order; 

It has marked the bounds of ocean. 

Men Hve by Hstening to song, 

Let us adore the Holy One, even the Sun. 

Hymn to the Sun 

On high the all-possessing God, 
The Sun, comes upward with a shout. 
As they were thieves, flee from his rod 
The myriad stars, their lanthorns out. 
The steeds yoked to his car are seven. 
Up, up, the wide highway of heaven 
' The Sun- God rides, his streaming hair 
Like flame floats in the lambent air. 
The clouds, like kine, go forth to feed 
On stellar plants and comet-weed. 
He milks the clouds when earth has need 
Of rain. He makes the kine to breed. 
Creatures of water and of land 
He giveth birth unto. His hand 
Scatters the seed, barley and wheat. 
That hungry man may have to eat; 
He giveth man the date fruit yellow; 
He makes the tamarind grow mellow. 

Blessings glow on us, Sun. 

Blessings blow on us, O Wind. 

Tell us, thou Glorious One, 

If Night has fled, can Day be far behind ? 
(104) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



The daivn begins to glow brightly. A priest piles more faggots and 
aromatic herbs upon the fire, which mounts in a pillar of flame. 

High Priest 

The will of God is the law of holiness: 
Sacrifice, propitiation and glory be unto Thee. 

Fire Song 

Fire, Fire, Fire, 

With wings which never tire 
Fly higher, higher, higher. 
Over the mountain's ledge, 
Over the cloudlet's edge, 
Over the rainbow's bridge. 
Over the starry ridge. 
Poppy-red thy petals, 
Yellow is thy stalk; 
In thy flame the metals 
Dance and sing and talk. 
Odors of balsam and myrrh. 
Spikenard, cedar and thorn 
Up a ladder of smoke-wreaths 
Climb like vines in the corn. 
The sun comes up. 

Fire, 

Faster, faster, faster, 

Zoroaster 

Prays for thee. 

Fire, 

Faster, faster, faster. 

Blaze for me. 

Burn, burn, cleft wood. 

Wood to fire should; 

Leap, leap, red Fire, 

To the stars aspire. 

(los) 



Ube %05t ©tacles 



Seethe, seethe, hot Water, 
Of Mother Fire daughter. 

Suddenly a shadow Jails. The startled worshipers regarding the sun 
see the figure as of a mighty hand slowly moving across the disc. At 
the same time the clouds pile up black with storm, and a freezing wind 
begins to blow down from the north across the steppe. The fire seethes 
and sizzles, and finally goes out, exlmling a black column of smoke 
with a gasp like that of some expiring animal. Priests and people 
break out into cries of lamentation. To the confused and frightened 
minds of the observers, the black rack of clouds racing with the tempest 
has the aspect of horses running wildly down the sky. An appalling 
storm of ice and sleet envelopes everything in a furious blizzard. The 
frightened horses and cattle stampede; the sheep begin to "mill" until 
they sink down exhausted to die. The snow piles up in huge drifts. 
Dismayed and frozen the wretched people stumble and fall in the blind- 
ing gale. At last, when the storm has spent its fury and the sun blows 
clear, it shines upon a white wilderness with no living thing visible. 
The corpses of men and animals strow the ground like flies frozen upon 
a blank, white wall. 

A Shepherd 

My father, my father. The chariots of the Storm. 
Father, father, father, I see his dreadful form. 

A Priest 

Horse, horse, horse. 

Drive down the skyey course. 

Against their charge 

No spear, no targe 

Availeth man. 

Let save himself who can. 

Second Priest 

The sun grows black, 

A frightful rack 

Of cloud is heaped upon his back. 

(io6) 



TTbe Xost ©racles 



High Priest 

Earth crawls, 

Sky falls, 

Heaven's walls 

With fear collapse. 

Night and Day 

Be driven away. 

The world to chaos doth relapse. 



Voice of the Blizzard 
Blow, blow! 
Zero! 

Freeze, Cold! 
Snow, fold! 
Horses, kine, 
Men are mine! 
My frigid breath 
Ordaineth death! 

A Woman's Cry out of the Snow 
Darkness wins, 
Death begins. 



(107) 



SCENE 6. HELLAS 

The Temple of Demeter, on the highest part of the island of Cnidusi 
near the Carian coast. Built wholly of Parian marble, its very 
whitness is symbolic of purity. In form it is much like the Erectheum 
at Athens, the faqade, instead of being supported by columns being 
upheld by caryatids, or the figures of beautiful maidens whose superb 
grace is a wonderful union of the static and the dynamic forces in 
Greek architecture. Their calm eyes, which look seaward, seem as if 
gazing over futurity into the eternity of time beyond. They seem, 
indeed, as they dreamily gaze on the sunbeam's play and the shadow's 
mark, to be lifted above time and place, and to be blessed in themselves. 
Demeter was primarily worshiped as the goddess who brought forth 
the wheat for man's sustenance, as Dionysos made the vine to grow- 
But in a larger sense Demeter came to be worshiped as perhaps the 
loveliest representative of beneficent nature. Ceres was the kindred 
Latin deity. She was portrayed, not as of virginal beauty like 
Aphrodite, but rather of matronly aspect, the personification of mother 
love and of the maternal qualities of nature. The myth of Demeter has 
appealed to the mind of many generations, and the telling of the legends 
pertaining to her history and her worship has taxed the imagination of 
many poets, among them Tennyson and Swinburne. The cult 
of Demeter was singularly pure and refined, and the "mysteries" 
possessed an elusive, delicate melancholy which was, perhaps, the 
very limit of charm in Greek religion. 

The statue of the goddess stands at the far end of the naos or nave. 
The walls of the temple are unpierced by windows. The temple is 
roofed. The only entrance into the nave is the single door, which, as 
in all Greek temples, is toward the east in order to catch the rays of 
the morning sun. The quiet and the dim light of the interior impart 
that air of inalienable mystery found in the worship of many religions. 
A golden lattice, answering to the r credos in a Christian cathedral, 
separates the holy of holies from the nave. Two bronze censers of 
exquisite workmanship, emit curling wreaths of fragrant smoke which 
float around the capitals of the columns in light blue clouds. A single 
lamp throws the parvis in front of the lattice into relief, but serves to 
accentuate the darkness roundabout. The priests and priestesses 

(io8) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



officiating are clad in white linen robes broidered with green and 
yellow flutings indicative of green and ripened wheal, which are 
gathered at the waist by a violet girdle. Their shoes are of white 
leather with golden soles. Their brows are bound with fillets, the 
ends of which hang down upon their shoulders, and terminate in tassels 
shaped like beards of wheat. The hair of the priestesses is tightly 
bound in a pretty knot, and that of both men and women powdered 
with gold dust to simulate ripened grain. 

Invocation to Demeter 

The tidal waters at their priest-like task, 
With touch of cleansing hand, 
Wash round the island strand. 
The daedal sunlight from day's golden flask 
A liquid radiance pours 
On hills and shores. 
Demeter, dear Demeter, 
Demeter, hear, Demeter! 
O, let some cleansing tide flow in 
To wash our hearts from taint of sin; 
O, let an inward radiance 
The thin flame of our souls enhance. 
Sweeter, sweeter, sweeter 

Than honey from the glen, 
Demeter, O Demeter, 
Thy name on lips of men. 
O lovely Grecian idyl, 
O flashing waters tidal, 
O golden sunlight daedal. 
Restore, restore. 
Our hearts once more! 
A Priestess (singing) 

With muted strings 
My sad heart sings. 
The world is grey 
With grief today; 

(109) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



The skies are lead, 

Cold is the ground, 

The earth is dead, 

Her drooping head 

With sackcloth's bound. 

No flower, no leaf. 

No harvest sheaf 

Is manifest, but only grief. 

Time's cruel scythe 

Has mowed the flowers. 

No birdsong blithe 

Beguiles the hours. 

Alas, for life, 

Alas, for breath; 

The earth seems given 

To conquering death. 

Singer and song 

Are gone with the throng; 

Lover and lass. 

Flower and grass. 

Soon fade and pass. 

Shepherd and sheep, 

The flock, they that keep, 

They that sing, they that weep. 

Ebb and flow; 

We come, we go. 

Whence ? Who knows ? 

Or whither goes ? 

Where is the birdsong of last year ? — the birds ? 

Where are the lovers of last year ? — the words 

Which glowed upon their lips like gold ? . . . . 

Spring flies fast, and youth is old. 



(iio) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



Priests and Priestesses 

One, one, to thee are watch and slumber; 

One, one, to thee are space and number. 

Thou, thou alone remainest, we 

Do change and pass like ships at sea. 

O Goddess, give to us a balm. 

Lend us of thy marmoreal calm. 

Some handjids of strongly aromatic incense are thrown upon the 
censers, and the interior of the temple is pervaded by a soft, yellow light, 
which makes it seem as if the glow of the outside sunlight had pene- 
trated within. The relief from the sombreness hitherto prevailing is 
spiritually reflected in the demeanor and the voices of the worshipers, 
whose feelings change from one of half mystical melancholy to one 
of buoyancy. 

Second Priestess {singing) 

I hear the seed cry 'neath the ground : 

" O lightly lie on me. 
From God to God my way runs round, 
O, life is sweet to me." 

I hear a bird-song in this shell. 

It whispereth to me: 
''Wait, wait, till God shall break the spell. 

Then I shall sing to thee." 

I hear the sap pulse in the wood, 

'T is eloquent of power. 
I hear the murmur of the bud : 

"Ah, wait until I flower." 

I hear the breathing of the earth. 

Her fragrant breath's like wine. 
Comes back to me the dream at birth — 

Mother thou art of mine. 

(ill) 



Zbc Xost ©raclCB 



I hear the beat of nature's heart, 

No wind's so sweet, so wild. 
Radiant Mother, O Earth, thou art, 

And I thy wondering child. 

With syrinxes in hand the now happy group dances and sings to the 
soft music of the simple pipes. Save for the environment of marble 
walls and columns instead of trees and walls of shrubbery, the scene 
might seem to be in Arcadia. Nature seems articulate in their 
singing. 

All {singing) 

In the clover, in the bee. 
In the wind's sweet minstrelsy, 
In the egg and in the bird, 
In the rose's perfumed word 
God is heard. 

In the ocean's throbbing tide, 
On the plains serene and wide, 
On the rugged mountain side 
God doth ride. 

In the procreant fire of man. 
In the womb's mysterious span. 
In the babe that's generate 
From the love of mate for mate 
God's elate. 

The golden gloom, ''no light, but rather darkness visible," abruptly 
turns to dusk, the dusk to darkness. Simultaneously a wave of dark- 
ness, as it were a wall of water, invades the temple, pouring through 
the door in a flood of blackness so thick that it almost seems a tangible 
entity. The great lamp hanging from the roof struggles and leaps, 
and seems, as it were, to pant for light as a drowning man pants for 
breath. The altar fire and the censers go out with something like a 
sigh. The priests and priestesses break out into inarticulate lamenta- 

(II2) 



Zhc %03t ©racles 



tions. In (lie midst of the terror and consternation the statue of 
Demeter finds voice hut her words sound as if coming from an almost 
infinite distance, like the voices one hears in dreams. The tones are 
remote, eerie, ancestral, as if the voice of ages past were speaking out 
of the depths of infinite longing and imperishable regret. 

The Statue of Demeter 
Calling, calling, calling: 

I hear Pan's anguished cry. 
Falling, falling, falling, 

The gods of Greece shall die. 
Banished, banished, banished. 

From hill- top and from highland; 
Vanished, vanished, vanished, 

From sunny vale and island. 
On Sunium's promontory 

Wild goats shall crop the steep, 
While Hellas' lore and glory 

In endless night shall sleep. 
Delphi's oracle is dumb; 
No joyous chants, no golden hum 
Of Dionysian ecstasies 
More shall greet the turquoise skies. 
Eleusis' mysteries are mute. 
Shivered pipe and timbrel, broken is the flute. 

Lost, lost, lost! 
Like butterflies in frost 
The gods and goddesses of Greece 
With broken wings sink down. Cease .... cease 
Your wailing .... priestess .... priest. 
Now is north south, now is west east ; 
The world sinks down upon its corner-posts, 
The mountains slide, the storied coasts 

Of Hellas slip into the sea 

Greece .... Greece .... is this .... thy destiny ? 

(113) 



TLbc Xost ©racles 



A horror of thick darkness by this time has enveloped the whole interior 
of the temple, a darkness which weighs upon the senses, which can be 
felt, which strangles like a noxious gas. Through it rises the wail of 
the perishing worshipers, which, as the monody proceeds, becomes 
fainter and fainter until the last verses are reduced to a mere whisper 
which finally dies out in the sigh of a single priestess whose voice has 
something divinely tragic in its utterance. It is more the voice of a 
mortally wounded and dying god than of a human being. 



Monody 

To everything there is a season, 

To every purpose under sun 

There is a time, a rhyme, a reason; 

Of myriad threads man's life is spun. 

A time of birth, 

A time to die, 

A time to dwell on earth, 

A time in earth to lie. 

A time to weep, 

A time to laugh, 

A time to eat, 

A time to quaff, 

A time to creep, 

A time to walk, 

A time to be silent, 

A time to talk. 

A time to get, 

A time to spend. 

Time to forget. 

And time to lend. 

A time to plough, 

A time to sow, 

A time to reap, 

A time to mow. 

(114) 



TTbe X09t ©racks 



A tkne to sleep, 


A time to wander, 


A time to keep, 


A time to squander. 


A time to travail, 


A time to joy, 


A time to ravel, 


Time to employ. 


A time .... when things are new. 


A time . 




. when things are through, 


A time . 




. when things are to be told, 


A time . 




. when silence is as gold. 


A time . 




.for ... . hopes, 


A time . 




.for ... . fears. 


A time . 




. for song .... 


A time . 




.for ... . tears .... 


A . . . . time .... for breath .... 


A . . . . 


time .... for ... . death. 



(lis) 



SCENE 7. ROME 

Interior of the Pantheon at night. A colossal marble statue of 
Olympian Zeus (the Roman Jupiter) stands in the middle of the 
edifice. Its workmanship shows that it is the product of a Greek, not 
a Roman sculptor. The countenance is one of great dignity and maj- 
esty, with an Olympian serenity of brow becoming the Greatest of the 
Gods, and all in all is evidence of the drift towards monotheism which 
characterized the religious history of imperial Rome. This effect 
of Olympian gra?ideur is heightened by the expanse of starred sky 
seen through the enormous aperture in the dome, and the flood of 
moonlight falling from above, which robes the majestic figure of the 
God in a silver mantle, and gives the impression of Jove enthroned upon 
Mount Olympus. In niches around the sides stand statues of the 
twelve great gods and goddesses, before each of which an altar smokes. 
The architrave is borne by fluted columns of giallo antico, or yellow 
marble. A bove it, and corresponding with the niches, rises a series of 
arches sustained by caryatids. The attica, or attic story, is adorned 
with porphyry and serpentine decorations. The roof is coffered in 
five rows of cassettes, which are covered with gold foil. Colossal bronze 
lions stand at the corners of the base of the statue of Jupiter, which are 
used as stationary censers, for their open mouths emit volumes of per- 
fumed smoke which curls upward through the aperture in the dome. 
An enormous and richly decorated altar of colored marbles is in front 
of the God, with a fire of aromatic herbs and cleft wood burning upon 
it, whose flames, reflected in numerous gold vessels upon the altar, 
dance fantastically iti the commingled moonlight and firelight. The 
pavement is a chequer-work of slabs of red and black Numidian marble. 
Huge torches in bronze rings affixed to the walls give light. The 
Pontifex Maximus, sustained by twelve flamens, is officiating before 
the high altar All are clad in bright red robes. The Pontifex Maxi- 
mus wears a tiara, the flamens have mitred ftats. Behind them are 
twelve vestal virgins whose white vesture and white veils gleam like snow 
in the moonbeams. A choir of boys stands on the right and left of the 
statue, upon a dais, or raised platform. The great interior of the 
Pantheon is crowded with imperial civil and military officials, senators, 
high incumbents of consular rank, gentlemen and ladies of the Roman 

(ii6) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



aristocracy, all richly costumed. The purple laticlave, the emblem of 
the highest order of the empire, adorns many a breast, and underneath 
many a military cape the gleam of rich armor may be seen. The 
music is wholly of brass and percussion instruments. There are no 
wood-minds or strings. 

Hymn to Jove 

Far up 'gainst the starred sky thou standest, 

Great Jove, of years without number. 
Like a sentry of war thou commandest, 

With eyes never knowing of slumber. 

The sun splashes thee with his glory, 

The moon washes thee with her light; 
Thy marmoreal forehead is hoary 

With white-crusted years in their flight. 

When skies are aglow with vermilion, 

And the sun in the heavens is bowed, 
Like a king in his secret pavilion 

Thou art canopied over by cloud. 

The storm flings his gonfalon o'er thee, 

The clouds build a battlement under; 
Darkness and dread bend before thee; 

Thou art ramparted round by the thunder. 

When the roar of the elements rages. 

And the mountains shiver aghast. 
Omnipotent God of the Ages, 

Thou art symbol of Rome's mighty past. 

On thy knees is the fate of to-morrow: 

Of the future no mortal is sure. 
But the future of Rome, it shall borrow 

A strength from the past to endure. 

(117) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



The Choir 

From east to west, from north to south 

Spreads Rome's wide battle-lme; 
From Caledon to Nilus' mouth 

Holds she domain. From pahn to pine 
Her legions move, her galleys sail 
On every sea, or calm or gale. 

PONTITEX Maximus (intoning) 

Cub of the she-wolf's breed, 

Whelp of the wer-wolf's den, 
Sprung from barbarian loins, 

Flamens and Vestals 

Rome, thou art mother of men. 

PoNTiFEX Maximus 

Mother of men and nations, 

Wielder of legions and law, 
Emancipator of peoples 

Flamens and Vestals 

From rule of tooth and claw. 

Pontifex Maximus 

Thee, in the ages lying 

Beyond our time and ken 
Shall men with praise undying 

Flamens and Vestals 

Praise, O mother of men. 

The Choir 

High on her throne of seven hills, august, 

Imperial Rome in grandeur sits. 
Beneath her feet the nations are as dust. 

The spectacle of history flits 

(ii8) 



XLbc Xost ©racles 



Before her haughty eyes like caravan. 

Greece, Egypt, Carthage, each hath passed ; 
To each the gods have measured out its span. 

Thy throne, eternal Rome, shall last. 
As men on stepping-stones do rise 

Of their dead selves to higher air. 
Thou treadest down the years. Emprise 

On emprise piled, the imperial stair 
To world-power slopes through storm and sun. 

Thine, thine, be all dominion! 

Vest.^ls 

The Twelve Great Gods of Rome we hymn. 
The Pantheon, august and dim. 
The Gods of all the world doth rim. 

PoNTiFEX Maximus (in high and magnificent tones) 
Only the Christians thee defy, O Rome. 
Only the Christians thee deny, O Rome. 

The Choer (mockingly) 
A superstitious breed 
From Jew and Gentile drawn. 
Without the law, they dream 
A judgment day shall dawn 
When Rome shall pass away; 
When Christ, their God, his sway 
O'er earth and heaven shall hold. 
Then will come back the old age, 
Then will come back the gold age 
By seer and sibyl told. 

The Flamens 

Vain were 't their superstition to deride. 
He whom their ignorance hath deified 

("9) 



xrbe Xost ©racles 



By Pilate's word was scourged and crucified. 

Since time began what god hath ever died ? 

Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad. 

Since man began to write hath history had 

Record of such pursuit ? such wild design ? 

Whereof a felon's cross is the ensign. 

A commotion arises among the avAitors. Amid shouts of protest 
and derision, an ascetic looking Christian priest, with dishevelled 
hair and unkempt beard, haggard face, and the general appearance 
of a religious fanatic, rushes wildly into the midst of the flamens and 
vestals before the high altar, a)id begins a frantic harangue which 
sounds like the chanting of a sinister incantation. 

The Christian 

Mystery, mystery, is unsealed! 
History, history, is revealed! 
New page for Rome our God hath writ; 
With righteous ruin is Rome smit. 

Mother of harlotry. 

Sister of scarietry, 
The blood of martyred saints 
Cries from the ground their plaints; 
Thy sin the whole world taints. 
God shall double double unto thee ! 
God shall treble trouble unto thee! 
The cup which thou hast filled 

With thy own doom shall bubble; 
For blood which thou hast spilled 

God shall exact thee double. 

Simultaneously a tremor shakes the Pantheon and a crack runs 
across the pavement like a mouse running across a floor. While the 
auditors stand rooted to the spot in grave apprehensiofi, a second 
shock comes. The crack in the pavement widens atid the crowd, with 
loud cries, retreats pell-mell from its yawning edges. The statues of 
the twelve gods tumble from their pedestals in the niches, and some of 
the coders in the ceiling fall with a crash. With the third shock the 

(120) 



Ubc Xost ©racles 



walls of the Pantheon are ruptured. The marble decoration around 
the attica falls down in a shower of broken fragments. Then ensues 
a fourth and terrible shock. The great marble statue of Jove is cleft 
from crown to fork, and topples in two gigantic masses over upon the 
heads of the crowd. The dome of the Pantheon buckles and caves in 
with a terrific roar of shattered stone and cement work. The chequered 
pavement heaves like the face of the sea in a storm. The whole struc- 
ture reels to and fro like a drunken man. In the midst of the darkness 
and terror a ferocious growling and grumbling may be heard like the 
diapason of a heavy surf upon a rocky coast. It is the Voice of the 
Earthquake. 



Voice of the Earthquake 

Grumble, grumble, grumble, 

Rumble, rumble, rumble. 

Tumble, tumble, tumble! 

Shock, shock, shock, 

Knock, knock, knock, 

Rock, rock, rock! 

Shake, shake, shake, 

Quake, quake, quake, 

Break, break, break! 

Crash, crash, crash, 

Dash, dash, dash. 

Smash, smash, smash! 

Yawn, yawn, yawn, 

Crack, crack, crack! 

Dawn, dawn, dawn 

Is black, black, black ! 

Earth dips, 

Rome slips, 

Yawn, Earth, and crack your lips. 

Flee, Sun, into eclipse, 

Hide, Moon, your pallid face; 

Run, Stars, God's knees embrace. 

(I2l) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



Cries of Consternation 

The earth moves 

The Seven Hills are shaken 

The earth is clean dissolved 

The earth reels like a drunkard 

The hills are removed like shepherds' huts. . . 
Rome falls .... 

and shall not rise 

The Christians' God shaketh terribly the earth. 

A Vestal Virgin 

From Vesta's hearth the fire is blown 

Whose flame averted heaven's wrath. 
Across her cold, white altar stone 

The slimy snail shall chart his path. 

A Senator 

The Roman state is desolate. 



The Praetorian Prefect 

The law which held the world in awe 

Is swallowed up in earth's maw. 

A dense fog settles over the scene. The earthquake shocks lessen in 
violence. The Pantheon is reduced to ruination. 

PoNTiFEX Maximus {hi Solemn, agonized cry from the midst of 
the ruins) 

While stands the Pantheon Rome shall stand: 
When falls the Pantheon Rome shall fall, 
And when Rome falls then falls the world. 



(122) 



INTERLUDE 

PROCESSION OF THE EXILED GODS 



Visae per coelum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma, et subito 
nubium igne collucere templum. Expassae repente delubri fores, et 
audita major humana vox, excedere deos; simul ingens motus exceden- 
tium. — Tacitus, Historiae v. 13. 

There never was a false God, nor was there ever a false religion, 
unless you call a child a false man. — Max jMuller. 



INTERLUDE 

PROCESSION OF THE EXILED GODS 

A gigantic bridge, black and sombre of aspect, in the form of an arc, 
is suspended over the void between Earth and Hell. Its ends are envel- 
oped in clouds and vapor. Far down in the gidf beneath it the River 
of the Milky Way may be seen flaming arowid space. To sad and 
solemn music the long procession of the fallen and exiled Gods is seen 
fding across the bridge toward Hell, aiid singing as they march. In the 
van are prehistoric gods who lived before the Flood, whose names have 
been forgotten among men — idols in wood, stone, meted. Some are 
antediluvian sea-monsters, some are of huge reptilian form; some look 
like lumbering black boulders endowed with the power of locomotion. 
These are meteorites and curious forms of rock worshiped as phalluses. 
Others are misshapen figures roughly hewn out of wood; still others 
appear as trees walking, their tangled roots a hundred crooked feet. 
All of these are dripping with the ooze of the Deluge and covered over 
with Crustacea and seaweed. This dreadfid company is followed by 
the Gods of the early Semites — Moloch, Chiun, and Chemosh of the 
Moabites; Baal-Berith, Baal-Zebub, the God of Flies, and Ashlar oth, 
the gods of the Zidonians; Nibhaz and Tartak, gods of the Avites; 
Milcom, the Ammonite god; Hadad-Rimmo7i, the god of the ancient 
Idumaeans; Dagon, the great Philistine god; Sepharvaim, Adram- 
melech and Annammelech, gods of the ancient Samaritans; Bel, Nebo, 
Istar, Merodach, the great gods among the Babylonians and Assyrians, 
together with lesser deities, Remphan, Nishroch, Nergal, Ashima; 
Attis appears, weeping for Tammuz whom she does not see following 
behind her; Osiris, Isis, Horus, Apis, Serapis, gods of the Egyptians. 
Last of all comes the whole thearchy of Greece and Rome. 
As the history of the development of religion is the history of an ascend- 
ing symbolism, the deities which represent the great civilizations of 
antiquity, notably Isis, Istar, Apollo, Demeter, Aphrodite and Zeus, 
exhibit a refinement and nobUity of countenance which shoivs that 
even under anthropomorphic guise the greatest and purest minds of 
antiquity had conceptions of the attributes of deity and of the nature of 
religion less gross, perhaps, than many beliefs and practices now 
current in Christianity. 



(125) 



XTbe Xost ©racles 



Chant of the Fallen Gods 

Across the Bridge of Breath, 
Over the Ridge of Death, 
Over the fearful arch. 
We march, we inarch. 
Tramp, tramp, tramp, 
Down the dizzy ramp, 
Below the dews and damp. 
Scorned but undismayed. 
To be tortured, yet unafraid. 



Spin, spin, spin. 
The potter turns his wheel, 
And thinks a god's within 
The clay his hands conceal. 
Can God imprisoned be 
In ware of pottery ? 

Gold, gold, gold. 

The craftsman melts the ore, 

And runneth it in mould 

(It is an ancient lore) ; 

Doth inert metal hold 

A power to adore ? 

Man, man, man. 
Ever since the world began, 
From prehistoric, dim age. 
Has made God in his image. 
The fetich of a clan. 
In wood, or stone, or bone 
The patient savage lone, 
With chisel carves and hews, 
Or doth the metal fuse, 
(126) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



And fashions with his hands. 
To whom will ye God liken ? 
May not material ikon, 
With feet and hands and eyes, 
To savage heart and reason 
Give comfort in its season ? 
To spark of good give rise ? 
May not barbarian idol 
Yet speak a message daedal ? 
That one who doeth right 
According to his light 
God sees — and understands. 



(127) 



ACT VI. THE CONSECRATION AND THE 
POET'S DREAM 



Les Diexix sont en pouissiere et la terre est muette: 

Rien ne parlera plus dans ton del deserte. 

Dors! Mais, vivante en lui, chante au coeur du poete 

L'hymne melodienx de la sainte Beaute. 

Elle seule survit, inamuable, eternelle. 

La mort pent disperser les univers tremblants, 

Mais la Beaute flamboie, et tout renait en elle, 

Et les mondes encor roulent sous ses pieds blancs. 

— ^Leconte De Lisle, Hypatie. 



ACT VI. THE CONSECRATION AND THE POET'S 

DREAM 

SCENE I. PATMOS 
Apostle John (slowly awakening, as from a dream) 

It was a dream 

The ocean stream 

This island of volcanic ash 

These twisted trees .... with seam and gash 

Tom by tempest .... fire-scarred 

Nothing is changed Alas, .... 'tis hard 

Though sick with hopes deferred 

Yet .... Lord, I trust thy word. 

Voices in the Am (mockingly) 

Faith's a wraith, 

Faith's a bubble, 

Faith's the false dawn, 

Faith is stubble. 
John 

Foul spirits of the air 

Seek to gird me with a snare. 
Siiddenly a shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds, and a dancing 
shape appears on the ground before the apostle. 

First Spirit (dancing and singing) 

On a golden sunbeam bright 
I slid hither fast as light 
Through the clouds that veiled my sight. 
A second spirit appears. 

Second Spirit 

On a poet's song I sped. 
As I flew the sun rose red. 
Night before the day fast fled. 

(131) 



Zbc Xost ©racles 



A third spirit appears. 

Third-Spirit 

On a lover's kiss I came 
Hitherwards, my wings of flame 
Rosy red with maiden shame. 
A fourth spirit appears. 

Fourth Spirit 

From a baby's laugh I sprang, 
While beside his mother sang 
Songs wherewith the woodland rang. 

The apostle John half rises out of his seat, and feebly beats around 
him with his staff. 

John 

Out! Out! Ye sprites abominable, 

Demons in angel guise. 
Return, return, unto that Hell, 
The abode of awful mysteries. 

The elfish figures disappear with mocking laughter. Simultaneously 
a troop of peasants of the island, both men and women, clad as vine- 
dressers and small farm laborers, files slowly into view, singing a dirge. 

Dirge for Pan 

Trees do stand when the sap is fled, 

With outward strength though the heart be dead. 

Delphi and Delos are no more; 

Tombs have outlasted temples hoar. 

The pyramids with age were grey 

Ere Parthenon rose in light of day. 

In Tempe's vale the God Pan lies 

With folded hands and curtained eyes; 

And wingless dreams and hopes distorn 

Lift tear-stained faces to the morn. 

Pan is dead, and the lips of prayer 

Are dumb in measureless despair. 

(132) 



Zbc %05t ©racles 



Tumultuous mid confused voices are heard, at first afar of, but 
rapidly drawing nearer, commingled with the music of pipes and 
timbrels. The apostle John stiffens with horror, while the peasants 
stand in eager and startled expectation, half in wonder, half in awe, 
as if doubting the evidence of their senses. 

A Man's Voice {singing) 

Swallow, swallow, swallow, 

Whither fleest thou ? 
Apollo, Apollo, Apollo, 

Sun-God, where art thou now ? 
Apollo, Apollo, Apollo, 
We follow, we follow, we follow. 
Hollo! Hollo! Hollo! 
An Old Man 

A heritage of racial memory, 

Resurgent haunts my 'wildered brain. 

Ancestral voices call me I descry 

Dim figures moving through a golden rain; 
Vast shapes of beauty and of power, limned 
Like pointed firs against a western sun 

The Peasants (shouting with exultation) 

The gods! the gods! singing the Song of Earth— 

The cosmic paean which Apollo hymned — • 

The chant Deucalion 

Sang after flood of life and death and birth! 

A wild and hilarious troop of men and women, their heads crowned 
with laurel garlands and clad in goat and panther skins, breaks 
jubilantly into view. They are revellers celebrating the Dionysian 
mysteries. 

The Revellers {dancing around John's chair, and joined by 

the peasants) 

Pan, Pan, Pan, 

E'er since the world began 

Comrade and friend of man. 



(133) 



Zbc Xost ©racles 



Pulse, sap; 
Throb, blood; 
Leap, babe; 
Break, bud. 

O Spring, it is the glad time; 
O Spring, it is the mad time. 
O Spring, it is the blood time; 
O Spring, it is the bud time. 
What's blood in me 
Is sap in tree; 
Through veins of each, 
In man and beech 

There runs a new and wondrous speech. 
It sings of bud and leaf, 
Of wheat and barley sheaf, 
It sings of love and youth, 
It sings of beauty, truth, 
It sings in cryptic rhyme 
Of lovers' mating time. 
Honey, yellow, yellow, 
Fruits so mellow, mellow; 
Birds and sweet birdsong, 
Poetry and word-song. 
Arbutus flower and eglantine. 
Vine, vine, vine, 
Wine, wine, wine. 
That wine of olden numbers, 
Give me of it to drain, 
And dream in golden slumbers 
The world is young again. 
The apostle John swoons and fails from his chair. 



(134) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



A Girl Reveller {singing) 

Come, come with me 

To Arcady. 

There Pan shall set thy sad heart free. 

The moaning strait 

Shall not frustrate 

Our hopes intent, our hearts elate. 

From cliff and scar 

Of Hellas, far 

Poetic fires flash like a star; 

Hymettus' side 

Is glorified. 

And Tempe's vale is deep and wide. 
Revellers and peasants run gleefully away leaving John lying on the 
ground. 



(135) 



SCENE 2. THE VALE OF TEMPE IN THESSALY 

An exquisitely beautiful woodland glade, walled by green trees, beech 
and oak mingled with the white blossoms of dogwood and the blaze of 
the oleander and wild pomegranate. The forest lawn is carpeted with 
flowers, cyclamen, and violet, and starred with jonquils and anemones. 
The wood opens toward the east where the sky — the hour is just before 
dawn — glows with hues of rose-red and orient pearl. In the middle 
ground a young man and a young woman are kneeling before a simple 
green altar made of turfs and feeding the thin flame upon it with 
dried twigs. The aromatic smoke ascends slowly in silver and purple 
spirals, breathing a fragrance all its own which melts and commingles 
with the smell of fresh earth, the breath of the dawn, and the odors of 
jasmine and smilax, myrtle and lentisk and wild rosemary, which 
hang invisible, yet palpitating, in the tender morning air. 

The Man {singing) 

Sparks of the eternal mind, 
We have that fire forgot; 
Pulses of the eternal heart 
We are, and know it not. 
The Woman {singing) 

Clod, clod, clod. 
With eyelids heavy and dry, 
We stand and wait — 
Too late, too late. 
And God, God, God, 
Goes unbeholden by. 
Earth, earth, earth. 
Men are, and ahen 
To the birth, birth, birth, 
That promised to make men. 
The man and the woman blow vigorously upon the thin flame, seeking to 
kindle it into larger life. As their effort is rewarded they rise up, 
and standing hand in hand, alternately regard the fire, the exquisite 

(136) 



TLbc Xost ©racles 



litUe vale in which they are, and the growing dawn. A golden mist, 
so fine that it may scarcely be distinguished from the vibrations of 
light, sufuses the atmosphere. 

Magnificat to Mother Earth {the man and woman singing 
in unison) 

This earth is not a rondured, steadfast globe 

With mere material substance over-wrought. 
The grasses are her hair, the seas her robe, 

She is a creature bright of sentient thought; 
A cosmic person in the Milky Way, 

Sister to planets, brothered by the Sun, 
Walking through starry meadows of the sky. 

Waking or asleep, like benediction, 
Alternate night and day 

Giving to men who in her bosom lie. 

The Woman 

All hving things of earth are children of 

The great Earth Mother — gods and faeries, we 
Who have forgotten her sweet mother-love. 

Bird, birdsong, animal, wild bee. 
With unseen hand the migrant seal she guides; 
By her the homing pigeon marks her flight, 
And squirrels and ants their winter stores amass; 
Her subtle influence directs the tides, 
Darkness and light 
In ordered sequence makes to come and pass. 

The Man 

The calmness of the unhastening earth. To walk 

Through primal fire and dew as man at first; 
To sport with stars and with the thunder talk; 

Unblanched to view the vivid lightning burst. 

(137) 



Ube Xost ©racles 



O, the sweet nakedness of running streams, 
Savor of soil, flavor of honey found 
Within the heart of ancient forest tree, 
Flutings of Pan to hear in magic dreams — 
And then to feel aroimd 
The arms of the Great Mother mothering me. 

The Woman 

Dear Mother Earth, majestical and grave. 

Merge me with thy own self and make me kin 
To flying shapes of hills and seas — me lave 

With Hving waters that shall cleanse from sin. 
I hear the Dawn's voice crying in the wind: 

"O, Day Star, rise. Darkness its course has run." 
Let me lie down even as a wondering child, 
A pulse of thy own planetary mind. 
Familiar of the Sun, 
Pla)nnate of stars, with eyes of glory wild. 

Man and Woman 

O archetypal world, soul of the Earth, 

Swim close to me, enormous, simple, vast. 
Give me to feel within my heart the birth 

Of those melodic harmonies thou hast. 
Free me from time, from number and from space; 
Break the sham barriers which men have made; 

Ope thou the gates of ivory and horn; 
Give me to see, naked and vmafraid 
The vision of thy face 
As man saw God upon creation's morn. 
A company of white-robed figures appears from the edge of the woody 
aiid slowly approaches the man and woman before the altar. They are 
men of middle age, with beards tinged with grey and of singularly 
lofty atid beautiful countenance and carriage. They are poets and 
philosophers such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Heraclitus, 
Plato, and Zeno were. 

(138) 



Ube %03t ©racles 



Chorus of Poets and Philosophers 

We are the bards and the sages 

Who know the wisdom of yore; 
We are the wise men and mages 

Of strange mythological lore; 
Sibyls who translate the pages 

Of volumes of history hoar. 
We are the makers of truth, 

We are the weavers of song; 
We are the wooers of ruth, 

We are the righters of wrong; 
We are the knitters of time, 

Teachers of what men have thought; 
We are the makers of rhyme, 

Preachers of what right hath wrought. 
The now mingled company stands before the smoking altar, but less 
regarding the flame tipon it than the glorious dawn. 

First Philosopher 

Darkling men hsten to that great undertone 

Which sings through sky and sea and land; 
Like shipwrecked sailors on a strange coast thrown, 

Frightened by things they do not understand, 
DarkUng men see, at their own shadows leap: 

The wonder, beauty, sweetness, awe 
Of nature's moods but frighten them as sheep; 

Like blind force nature seems, not law. 

The sun cotnes up in majestic drapery clad. The flame on the altar 
springs and glows and crackles. 

First Poet 

Canst thou arrest the breath of violet ? 
Or catch the nightingale's song in a net ? 
Or clutch the wind ? or snatch the stars ? — 
The rings of Saturn or the moons of Mars ? 

(139) 



TLbc %03t ©racles 



God is spirit, holiness, beauty, truth. 

Life, love, law, justice, power, ruth. 

For reason, mind eternal, supreme cause 

Fast hold the world within eternal laws. 

And earth, sea, mountains, sky, stars, planets, man. 

Are subject to His all-pervading plan. 

A merry group of nymphs, fauns, dryads, comes dancing and leaping 
forth from the embowered woods. They form an inner circle around 
the altar, and seem to dance in time with the dancing flames. 

Chorus of Nymphs 

God's a whisper, 
God's a shout, 
God's a sweet air 
Blown about. 
God is time, 
God is chime, 
God is rhyme. 
God is wind, 
God is art, 
God is mind, 
God is heart. 



The Fauns {leaping and dancing) 



God 


is I, 




God 


is star. 




God 


is by, 




God 


is far. 




God 


is prayer. 




God 


is hymn. 




God 


is light, 




God 


is twilight dim. 




Changeless spirit, yet 


the change. 


Rangeless spirit, yet the range. 


Strangeless spirit, yet 


how strange 




(140) 





XTbe Xost ©racles 



Chorus of Dryads 

God is twilight, god is dawn, 

God is shadow on a lawn, 

God is near light, 

God is dear light, 

God is far light, 

God is star light. 

God is the depth, God is the plummet, 

God is the base, God is the summit, 

God is love, God is wrath, 

God's the mountain, Gk)d's the path. 

Chorus of Nymphs, Fauns, and Dryads 
In the warp and in the woof, 
In the pattern, in the proof. 
In the color of the dye, 
In the shuttle flying by. 
In the thread, the knots which bind. 
In the thought of weaver's mind. 

God shalt thou find. 
In the reft and in the dower, 
In the storm and in the shower, 
In the year and in the hour, 
In the seed and in the flower, 

God is power. 
In the sowing and the reaping, 
In our laughter and our weeping. 
In the letting and the keeping, 
In the wide and in the narrow. 
In the eagle and the sparrow. 
In the deep and in the shallow, 
In the acorn and the mallow 

God lies sleeping. 

(141) 



Xlbe Xost ©racles 



God is everywhere; 

In the earth and in the air, 

In the sun and in a star, 

Very near and very far; 

In the cloud and in the soil. 

In man's joy and in his toil, 

In a song and in a prayer, 

God is there. 

God fills all of space and time, 

God sings in the poet's rhyme, 

His spirit liveth in all art. 

The rosy chamber of the heart 

No less His dwelling-place apart. 

The sun is now risen in full splendor. The company of woodland 
worshipers merrily disperses through the glade, leaving only the phil- 
osophers and poets by the altar. 

Second Poet 

From fire, water, air and earth 
Cometh man at his birth. 
Yet is he not of them whole: 
From the fusion shines a soul 
Subtler, purer than the things 
Out of which himself took wings. 

Third Poet 

This is the quest of quests to men of heart — 
Love nature first, and after nature art. 
Seek nature first, and after nature song; 
Man's life is short, but art and nature long; 
The march of time forever forward goes, 
And springs will ever follow winter's snows. 

First Poet 

He who the spirit's many lights 
Has followed through the ages' nights 

(142) 



Zbc %03t ©racles 



Can see the answering torches gleam 
Like stars upon a quiet stream. 

First Philosopher 

The fleetless dream of beauty everywhere 
Is God's own revelation of himself. 
Keep beauty pure that it be truly fair. 

With slow and stately steps the philosophers and poets turn away and 
leisurely disappear among the trees. The fire on the turf allar whispers 
and sings to itself until it flickers out. A sylvan beauty and quiet 
pervades everything. God is in the silence no less than He was in the 
song. 

FINIS 



Q;bl0 book bas been written for love of poetri?, 

toe latgeninfl of beautg, anO to restore 

forgotten spiritual values in tbe 

blstori2 of bumanltg. "©n 

everg simile Dost tbou 

bere rlOc to vers 

trutb." 



(143) 



Nl? 89 





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